Missing Link ... Not so Much

A 47 million year old fossil thought to be the missing link is not. The creature was not even on our branch of the 'primate family tree'.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/biology_evolution/article6884359.ece

"It was billed as one of the most important fossil finds in history, a “missing link” that would challenge everything we knew about human evolution.

Darwinius masillae, the primitive primate that was unveiled to the world with huge fanfare and a Sir David Attenborough documentary in May, seems now to have been less of a missing link than an evolutionary dead end. Far from being an ancestor to humans, the lemur-like creature from 47 million years ago belongs to an entirely different branch of the primate family tree that has left no known descendants, research has indicated."