Laelaps is the blog of freelance science writer 
It's Ardipithecus day! No, not that one, but the other one, Ardipithecus ramidus, which paleoanthropologists have been studying for the past 15 years. Over 45% of the skeleton of this hominin was found in the early 1990's, but outside of a brief initial description no further details about Ardipithecus ramidus had been published until today.
Later this afternoon Science will launch a webpage containing multiple print articles and online features chock-full of details about this early hominin. (Word has it that an entire University of California Press volume will be devoted to Ardipithecus ramidus, as well, just as one was given to its sister species Ardipithecus kadabba.) If you really can't wait for the papers, though, (and, hell, even if you can) go check out Carl Zimmer's excellent summary of some of the new research. I will add my own thoughts here after I have a chance to read and digest the research being released this afternoon.
Life Science
Comments
Do you know if the papers are going to be open access?
Posted by: afarensis, FCD | October 1, 2009 11:44 AM
I see that National Geographic has headlined their article with the phrase, "Disproves missing link." I certainly understand why they wrote that, and that it is technically true, but I'll bet that creationists will be quote-mining that for generations.
Posted by: gg | October 1, 2009 11:49 AM
I have no idea, but they should be, dag nabbit. The details about one of our earliest hominin relatives should be available for everyone to see.
If it is restricted access I will send you the papers when I am able to get them this afternoon. Just let me know if you cannot access them and I will send them right away.
Posted by: Laelaps | October 1, 2009 11:49 AM
Cool! Thanks.
Posted by: afarensis, FCD | October 1, 2009 1:32 PM
National Geographic's article also says this: "Move over, Lucy."
UGH!
This does not displace "Lucy" (and, more generally, Praeanthropus afarensis) as a potential human ancestor! As the article itself ntoes, Ardipithecus ramidus lived a million years earlier than "Lucy". It is perfectly possible that Ardipithecus ramidus is ancestral to us via Praeanthropus afarensis. (At the very least, it is probable that both species were at least very similar to actual ancestors, if they are not ancestral themselves.)
Also from that article: "This find is far more important than Lucy," said Alan Walker. Why does this have to be a reduced to a pissing match? Both specimens are very important.
Posted by: Mike Keesey | October 1, 2009 3:41 PM
Mike; I feel your pain. I bring up similar points in a longer essay I'm working on (just waiting for the actual papers to come out!)
Whether 'Ardi' is more important than 'Lucy' depends on what type of question you want to ask, but I agree that it's pretty dumb to reduce things to which hominin is somehow absolutely better than another.
More generally, though, when you are looking at a series of fossils with transitional features it is important to have multiple species and genera. A. afarensis does not become less important with the discovery of an earlier fossil form; it becomes more important because now we have another species to compare it to and see how some features changed and others did not. No one fossil species, by itself, tells us everything we need to know about a transition from one form to another. The series is important. That's how you can track the changes and test hypotheses. Ardipithecus ramidus is important because it allows us to test ideas that have been around for a bit and come up with new hypotheses, but it only makes sense in the context of hominins that have already been discovered. If we had no other fossil hominins maybe it would suffer the same fate that Australopithecus africanus initially suffered; it would be called an "ape" and pushed aside.
Not that you don't know any of this, of course. I am just frustrated with how much hyperbole gets bandied about when a new, interesting fossil that tells us about the evolution of one group or another is announced.
Posted by: Laelaps | October 1, 2009 3:49 PM
I don't seem to ba able to access them from work. Once you get past the missing link crap the Nat Geo article isn't too bad.
Posted by: afarensis, FCD | October 1, 2009 6:20 PM
Afarensis; You should be able to access them after you register with Science (there should be a link in the black box that will allow you to do this). The PDF's are acting a little wonky, but the fulltexts seem to be working ok.
Posted by: Laelaps | October 1, 2009 6:36 PM
Yes, I have them now.
Posted by: afarensis, FCD | October 1, 2009 8:22 PM