missing link

missing link
1. a hypothetical form of animal assumed to have constituted a connecting link between the anthropoid apes and humans, identified by some authorities as constituting the genus Australopithecus.
2. something lacking for the completion of a series or sequence.
[1850-55]

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▪ evolutionary theory
      hypothetical extinct creature halfway in the evolutionary line between modern human beings and their anthropoid progenitors. In the latter half of the 19th century, a common misinterpretation of Charles Darwin's work was that humans were lineally descended from existing species of apes. To accept this theory and reconcile it with the hierarchical Great Chain of Being, some fossil ape-man or man-ape seemed necessary in order to complete the chain. Today it is recognized that the relationship of modern humans to the present anthropoid apes (e.g., chimpanzees) is through common ancestors rather than through direct descent. These ancestors have yet to be identified, but ape-hominid divergence may have occurred 6 to 10 million years ago.

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Universalium. 2010.

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