Darwinius masillae

Introduction: Darwinius masillae

The Discovery
On May 19, 2009, a team led by paleontologist Jørn Hurum of the Natural History Museum in Oslo Norway announced a significant new fossil discovery to the world. Nicknamed “Ida” after Hurum’s daughter, the team argued that the fossil was a type specimen, the individual fossil used to describe a species new to science (also called a holotype). The team named the new species Darwinius masillae, because the discovery was made in the 200th anniversary year of Charles Darwin’s birth.
Ida was not a typical fossil discovery. The specimen had actually been discovered by a private collector much earlier, in 1983, near Messel Germany. Her remains had been split into two separate slabs, which remained separate until 2000. The collector kept the main part (known as “Slab A”), while the second part (“Slab B”) was sold to the Wyoming Dinosaur Center in the United States. The two slabs are shown here:
The Fossil
The parts of skeleton B that are outside of the dashed lines were fabricated so the fossil would look complete when it was displayed. This is normal for fossil casts (replicas) but is not normally done with real fossils unless they are relatively worthless. In spite of the Plate B fabrication, Ida is a remarkable and very important fossil for two reasons: how complete the specimen is and the fossil’s antiquity. With 95% of the skeleton, she represents one of the most complete fossils of her age ever found. Better preservation of a more complete fossil always gives scientists more information– so this is really important. Ida’s remains are so well preserved because of the way she became fossilized (her taphonomy). She was found near an ancient volcanic lake called a maar that was formed by an explosion when hot magma underneath the earth’s surface came in contact with a water table. The lake had no rivers feeding into it, so it had very little oxygen, which you may remember from our Explorations reading is a condition that creates exceptional preservation potentia

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