Posted on 08/04/2009 1:40:23 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
A 260-million-year-old fossil is the oldest known tree-dwelling creature, according to researchers. Scientists described the finding as the earliest evidence in the fossil record of an "opposable thumb"... they described how the animal's elongated hands and fingers would have helped it to grip and climb... The fossilised creature, named Suminia getmanovi, has been dated to late Permian period, 100 million years earlier than the first known tree-dwelling mammal. It was first discovered in Russia in 1994. But for lead author Jorg Frobisch, from the Field Museum in Chicago, US, said this study was the first opportunity to examine its whole skeleton... Suminia, he explained, was a small animal - about 50cm (20 inches) from its nose to the tip of its tail. "But for the size of its body, it had relatively long limbs, and very long hands and feet," said Dr Frobisch. "The hands and feet made up almost half of the length of its whole limb," he continued. "That's humungous, if you compare it to your own arm." ...Between the time when Suminia lived, and the period to which fossils of the earliest-known tree-dwelling mammals have been dated, there is a gap of about 100 million years.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
bfltr
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The opposable thumb: yet another irreducibly complex structure.
Darwin's Black Box:
The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution
by Michael J. Behe
hardcover
Molecular Machines webpage (thanks Val)
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