The Missing Link

Charles Darwin, in his 1859 masterwork on evolution On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection called them "transitional" forms--creatures that would help fill in the record during the evolutionary habitat change from water to land, which took place between 360 and 410 million years ago. Today we call these transitional forms "missing links." According to the theory of evolution, all tetrapods--that's four-limbed animals to you and me--descended from a single creature. We share a similar skeletal structure with horses, dogs, lions, bears, giraffes, birds, whales, and even lizards. We all have pelvic bones with an interlocking spine, a rib cage that protects our heart, and limbs that end in four-or-five digits. The search for our long-dead common ancestor, the "missing link," is considered to be the Holy Grail of paleontology. In this educational and entertaining NOVA episode, interviews with scholars (including the late Stephen Jay Gould) are interwoven with on-location footage as scientific "detectives" travel around the world on an exciting adventure in search of fossilized remains. In one sequence, a startling re-discovery is made in an obscure museum in Eastern Europe, where a tiny jawbone that had been overlooked for decades provides a possible clue to the identity and appearance of our part-fish, part tetrapod, missing link ancestor. Highly recommended. Aud: J, H, C, P. (J. Asala)