Science Saturday II: Another Missing Link?

Scientists may have found a missing link between Australopithecus and earlier ancestors.

An international team of paleontologists says it has found a 4.1 million-year-old transitional species between the earlier Ardipithecus ramidus and the later Australopithecus anamensis superimposed in sediments in Ethiopia.

The scientists say the discovery supports the hypothesis that the newly found fossil -- Australopithecus anamensis -- was a direct ancestor of afarensis (see photo), which lived 3 million to 3.6 million years ago.

The Australopithecus genus — which resembled apes in stature and brain size but unlike great apes walked on two legs — is thought to have given rise to our own genus, Homo.

The New York Times has more.