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Asked by chelss to Vera, Steve, Sam, Katie, Ed on 21 Jun 2011.
Question: when i have been reading about evolution i have read the saying 'the missing link' .. what does this mean?
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Ed Morrison answered on 20 Jun 2011:
Evolution means change over time. So any species that we see know underwent a series of changes from some past version, called the ancestral species. Sometimes we find fossil evidence of the forms between the existing and the ancestral form. These are missing links.
A classic example of a missing link is Archaeopteryx. This is a fossil that looks like a cross between a dinosaur and a bird, and shows how dinosaurs evoloved into modern birds. I guess since it’s now been found it’s no longer a missing link.
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Vera Weisbecker answered on 20 Jun 2011:
I agree with Ed. Some people claim that there are no missing links to “prove” that evolution really occurred by organisms slowly evolving from one kind into the other, but they are completely wrong. There are lots and lots – you get fossil whales that betray their four-legged mammalian ancestry by still having legs, amazing fossils of horses that re-trace the evolution of hooves, fossil apes that show exactly how humans evolved, and even some living “missing links” – for example, there is a type of fish (sarcopterygians) that is more closely related to land vertebrates (frogs, reptiles, and mammals) than other fish. These fish have very leg-like fins, showing how legs started to evolve.
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Sam Tazzyman answered on 21 Jun 2011:
People who don’t believe in evolution often try to bring up the idea of a “missing link”. What this usually means is that they ask scientists to find the animals that came between species A and species B. When scientists find this species, which we’ll call species C, the people who don’t believe in evolution ask for the “missing links” between species A and C, and species C and B. Since not everything gets fossilised you can never find a fossil for every animal that has ever lived, and so the scientists can’t win. But the fact is that every time there has been a big gap, a fossil has been found that fits in it.
Comments
Anna commented on :
Hi Chelss,
As Ed rightly says, a missing link is a creature (animal or plant) that appears to shar some characteristics with its ancestral species and some characteristics with the existing species.
In most Evolution text books, though, “the missing link” that is referred to is an animal that shares characteristics with modern humans and with our primate relatives such as chimpanzees or orangutans for example. It is the common ancestor of both modern apes and modern humans. For a long time, it was thought that only this evidence could prove evolution once and for all, but it hadn’t been found yet – hence it was called the ‘missing’ link. However, now that the science of evolutiion has advanced, and more fossil ancestors of humans (hominids) and modern apes have been found, it is no longer absolutely necessary to find the ‘missing link’ in order to prove evolutiion – most scientists are happy that evolution is the case. Of course, it would still be fanatastic to find such as fossil, and palaeontologists have got very close with the discovery of Ardipithecus. You can find out more on this lovely website: http://www.becominghuman.org/
maggie246 commented on :
Wow, Anna explained A LOT!
chelss commented on :
thanks for all your answers there all so intresting and is really helping me understand evolution now because as you can tell from my questions i didnt have a clue to start with, thanks for all of your help everyone 🙂