Pinky Finger Reveals New Hominid

Thomas H. Maugh II of the Los Angeles Times reports DNA evidence extracted from pinky finger indicates that at least four species of human-like creatures walked the Earth at the same time.

More hominids strengthens the argument for the likeliness of a yet undiscovered primate lurking the hidden landscapes of the world. An exerpt from the article is below.

LOS ANGELES -- DNA from a 40,000-year-old pinkie finger, belonging to a child and found in a cave in Siberia, indicates that the bone is from a previously unknown family of human relatives that lived among Neanderthals and modern humans, German researchers reported Wednesday.

The discovery, if confirmed by research already under way, would mark the first time that an entirely new species of hominid has been identified solely on the basis of DNA sequencing, the team reported online in the journal Nature. It also suggests that other currently unknown species could be similarly identified.

With the recent, and still controversial, discovery of the Hobbitt-like species Homo floriensis that survived in Indonesia until about 13,000 years ago, the evidence now indicates that at least four species of human-like creatures walked the Earth at the same time. The find suggests that "40,000 years ago, the planet was more crowded than we thought," wrote evolutionary biologist Terence A. Brown of the University of Manchester in an editorial accompanying the report.

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