As the debate continues over whether the fossil known as ‘Ida’ is a possible “missing link” between man and the lower primates, evidence appears to be mounting that her death was no accident.
“It is possible that Ida was pushed into the lake and drowned as a result of taunting and bullying by prosimian lemurs jealous of her advanced physical traits,” says Professor Joseph Davola, an evolutionary biologist at the University of California-LaLa. “The almost perfect preservation of her remains suggests a lack of a struggle, indicating Ida may not have been aware what her attackers had planned.”
Davola says the physical changes expressed by Ida, such as her opposable thumbs and five-fingered hands would more than likely have caused the lemurs Ida was evolving away from to see her as “acting all superior” and “copping an attitude.”
“Everything from her much larger ankle bone, as well as the lack of a ‘toothcomb’ and ‘grooming claw’ all may have had the effect of demonstrating to lemurs that Ida was somehow ‘going Hollywood’ on them,” Davola states.
According to Davola, species on the cusp of an evolutionary transformation to a higher being would naturally be both very protective of their historical traits and tend to view evolving traits with a mixture of disdain and jealousy.
Davola says that the vulnerable age at which she died and the presence of berries and leaves in the fossilized remains of Ida’s stomach suggest that her fellow youthful female lemurs may have been trying to “tease her into developing an eating disorder, prior to physically attacking her.”
Davola also believes pre-monkey and ape primate groups that included prosimian lemurs possessed an extremely primitive form of communication that involved tree branches and rocks of various sizes.
“Lemurs would throw these objects at each other’s head in a specified order to communicate a very early version of ideas,” Davola explains. “With her expanding mental abilities as she began to take on the attributes of anthropoid primates, Ida may have looked down upon this primitive form of communication, and this may have further annoyed the lemurs into attacking her. “
(Davola theorizes that the phrase “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me,” may actually have been the germ of a thought in Ida’s developing intellect, and one that may have pushed her adversaries over the edge in terms of tolerance.)
Davola, known in evolutionary biology circles as “Crazy Joe” for his sometimes radical and non-conformist interpretations of fossil evidence, says that friction between any species that is evolving should be viewed as both normal and inevitable.
“Just look at what’s going on between conservatives and liberals in this country today and you can see what I’m talking about,” Davola stated in what colleagues called a “typically cryptic analogy.”
