Frontis plate with illustration from Ernst Haeckel \The History of Creation\" English translation by Prof. E. Ray Lankaster 1876. \"A hypothetical sketch of the monophyletic origin and of the extension of the 12 races of man from Lemuria over the Earth\". While Darwin correctly suspected an African origin for mankind, Haeckel hypothesised a lost continent of Lemuria from which the various races of mankind had spread. Though there seemed little basis in geology for this supposition, it suited his own racial ideologies and would help him explain the (then) rarity of human fossils (on account of them being lost on a drowned continent). It also helped explain the anomalous distribution of Lemurs (hence the name) in the seemingly disconnected realms of Africa, Madagascar, India and Asia. We now have many early hominid fossils from Africa and explain lemur distributions with continental drift."