Ardi, short for Ardipithecus ramidus, is the newest star in the field of paleontology. Both National Geographic and The Discovery Channel are promoting this discovery on their websites and television programs. This announcement is the culmination of research and studies that began in Ethiopia in 1994. Ardi has supplanted Lucy, the previous record holder of the oldest fossil with direct links to modern man. According to the National Geographic website:

“The fossil puts to rest the notion, popular since Darwin’s time, that a chimpanzee-like missing link—resembling something between humans and today’s apes—would eventually be found at the root of the human family tree. Indeed, the new evidence suggests that the study of chimpanzee anatomy and behavior—long used to infer the nature of the earliest human ancestors—is largely irrelevant to understanding our beginnings…