A FOSSILISED skeleton that may be a vital missing link in human evolution will be revealed in a BBC documentary.
The 90-minute program, to be presented by Sir David Attenborough, is top-secret.
But sources in the US say the research on which it is based will be revealed by scientists in New York on May 19.
The centrepiece of the program is the unveiling of the first complete skeleton of an extinct animal called an adapid.
The fossilised bones, which are thought to be between 37 and 47 million years old, were found in Germany's Messel Shale Pit, an old quarry near Frankfurt famous for fossils.
The team who examined the young female animal say it has some resemblance to a lemur, a mammal with a distinctive tail found in Madagascar.
Controversially, they have concluded the fossil is not simply a lemur but from a related group of primates, which evolved into monkeys, apes and human beings.