“Messel and the terrestrial Eocene” – Proceedings of the 22nd Senckenberg Conference

Abstract

In May 2009, a new fossil entered the history books: Ida, a.k.a. Darwinius masillae, the most complete fossil primate ever found (Franzen et al. 2009). All around the world, from secluded palaeontology laboratories to the mass-frequented internet, this little female had tongues wagging vehemently about our own origin. Indeed, whereas everybody agrees that Ida belongs to the adapiforms (an extinct group of primates traditionally allied with lemurs), Franzen et al. (2009) claim that, based on features displayed by Ida, the whole Adapiform clade should be allied with Haplorhini (tarsiiforms, monkeys and apes). Detractors of this hypothesis would question the significance of the characters chosen by Franzen et al. (2009), or even their interpretation, and put forth other morphological characters as well as other fossil primates as arguments against a relationship between haplorhines and adapiforms. Determinedly, these critics argue that more features support the widely held hypothesis that adapiforms and lemurs (Lemuriformes) are sister taxa in the clade Strepsirrhini. In any case, Ida is a wonderful fossil, which also advertises—thanks to her name “masillae”—the site of Messel that bore her remains for over 47 million years. Masilla is the Latin name for Messel used in the Lorsch monastery Codex, 800 AD. ... Messel, ...