Ardipithecus ramidus is an extinct primate whose fossilized remains were first found along the Awash River in Ethiopia about 15 years ago. Many fragments were collected, including shattered bones from a four-foot-tall female nicknamed "Ardi." She was chosen to represent her kind, apparently because of the comparative completeness of her remains.

This past May, a fossil nicknamed Ida was loudly heralded by the evolutionary scientific community as the long-sought-after "missing link" that supposedly proved ape-to-human evolution. Directly following the unveiling, ICR News reported reasons why Ida, in fact, linked nothing, being merely an extinct variety of lemur.¹

Ida is the stunningly well-preserved fossil that has been hailed as "our connection with the rest of all the mammals."¹ A massive publicity campaign, including books, videos, a website, and public unveilings, coincided with the May 2009 publication of a scientific study conducted on the fossil.² But published statements from creation and evolutionary scientists alike indic

by Brian Thomas, M.S., and Frank Sherwin, M.A.*

Scientists and media outlets around the world are praising "Ida," the primate fossil hailed as the long-sought-after "missing link" in the human evolutionary theory.