Scientists discover missing link between man and apes

London, Apr 4 (ANI): Experts have found a "missing link" between humans and their apelike ancestors.

The scientists will unveil a two-million-year-old skeleton of a child, thereby revealing the new species of hominid, the evolutionary branch of primates that includes humans, reports The Telegraph.

According to the boffins, the almost-complete fossilised skeleton belonged to a previously-unknown type of early human ancestor that may have been a intermediate stage as ape-men evolved into the first species of advanced humans, Homo habilis.

The discovery could fill in crucial gaps in the scientific knowledge and could help rewrite the history of human evolution.

While exploring cave systems in the Sterkfontein region of South Africa, Professor Lee Berger, from the University of the Witwatersrand found the skeleton.

Dr Simon Underdown, an expert on human evolution at Oxford Brookes University, said: "A find like this could really increase our understanding of our early ancestors at a time when they first started to become recognisable as human." (ANI)