When the fossil primate known as “Ida” was catapulted into the public consciousness in 2009, her backers pushed only one angle of her story. This primate, they said, was “THE LINK” – not a link to our prehistoric roots, but the single point in evolutionary history that connected us to our deeper primate past.

Not surprisingly, the Ida hype misconstrued our connection to her. This 47 million year old primate, known to paleontologists as Darwinius masillae, was more closely related to ancient lemurs and lorises than to our own lineage. Darwinius was about as distantly related to our ancestors as possible while still being