What missing link?

Transitional fossils are those with anatomical features intermediate between two major groups of organisms. Such fossils were conceived as "missing links" from lowly corals through higher organisms such as birds and mammals to humans. We now know this is a misconception. Life does not progress up a hierarchical ladder from low to high but is a branching bush with numerous lineages splitting apart and coexisting simultaneously. The concept of "missing link" is a misleading one. A transitional form does not need to be a perfect halfway house directly linking one group of organisms to another. It merely needs to record aspects of evolutionary change that occurred as one lineage split from another.