Meet Ida.  She’s 21 inches tall, the width of a coaster, and 47 million years old–pretty cool for something that some German collector considered artwork for 20 years.  She’s been researched by scientists ever since the mistake was discovered, and she’s on display at New York’s Museum of Natural History today for a short time, before hopping briefly to London and returning to Oslo.

Ida is making waves because of her human-y nails instead of claws, opposable big toes, and “the shape of the talus bone in her foot, which humans still have in their feet an incredible 70 million lifetimes later.”  Meaning she helps explain why so many of us like bananas.  Happy 200th, Darwin!

More on Ida here. She’s supposed to have been unveiled today to pomp and circumstance featuring Mayor Bloomberg and all, but I can’t seem to find any info on that on the museum’s website.

[photo from www.revealingthelink.com]

Tags: Darwin, evolution, fossils, Science

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