Darwinius masillae

Darwinius masilae, ("Charles Darwin's creature from the Messel pit") is a basal or "stem group" primate species from the Eocene, known from a fossil recovered in the 1980s from the Messel pit, a disused shale quarry near the village of Messel, about 35 km southeast of Frankfurt am Main. The fossil, divided in two sections after the amateur excavation and sold separately, was not reassembled until 2007.

The fossil, about 47 million years old, lies near the separation of two major primate clades, one leading to the prosimians, the other to monkeys and, eventually, to the great apes including Homo sapiens.

At the time it was widely published, in the scientific and the popular press, the fossil was characterized as the "most complete fossil primate ever discovered"; it is missing only its left rear leg. Remnants of a last meal, of fruit and leaves, can be detected, and imprints of the creature's fur.