Linking Man To a Monkey

New fossils point to a tiny, tree-dwelling ancestor

They weighed no more than a hand-ful of peanuts, had large, saucer-like eyes and flitted about the treetops of humid Asian rain forests on feet no bigger than rice grains. Shy nocturnal creatures, they snapped up insects and nectar as quickly as their tiny bodies could digest them, all the while trying to avoid becoming a meal themselves for nightly predators such as owls. Meet Eosimias, the "dawn monkey"--what some experts are calling the primate equivalent of the missing link.

Eosimias, which lived 45 million years ago, made news last week when paleontologists disclosed new fossil evidence placing the little animal...

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