The palaeontologist who captured the public imagination — and was subjected to professional condemnation — with Ida the fossil disclosed yesterday that he paid nearly $750,000 (£465,000) for the specimen.

Jørn Hurum bought the almost-complete skeleton for the Natural History Museum in Oslo from an amateur collector who had kept it in his basement for 25 years. He believes that Ida is a missing link in human evolution.

Fellow scientists denounced the discovery as hype and criticised Dr Hurum, saying that the purchase could stimulate a black market in fossils.

Dr Hurum explained in an interview with The Times yesterday why he was willing to pay far more than had been paid for any fossil primate. “It’s the only near-complete fossil primate ever found. There is absolutely nothing like it,” he said. His priority, he said, was to make sure that Ida — named after his seven-year-old daughter — was available for scientific investigation. “She could easily have been bought by a private collector and disappeared for another 20 years.”

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The skeleton, which other palaeontologists say is far more likely to be an ancestor of lemurs and bush babies than human beings, was unearthed in the Messel pit, a renowned fossil site near Darmstadt in Germany, in 1983. The anonymous collector kept it in his basement until it was sold to Dr Hurum in 2007.

Experts claim that the payment of such a high price for a fossil could lead to profiteering by amateur bone collectors, the banning of fossil exports by governments and a surge in fossil prices. “It’s the first time an early primate has been bought and sold in such a highly visible way,” Chris Beard, curator of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, said.

Dr Beard said that it would be more difficult for scientists to acquire specimens for research purposes. “The big problem is that we have to go to the Third World and convince our colleagues there that these fossils have only scientific worth and not commercial value,” he said.

Elwyn Simons, an eminent palaeontologist at Duke University in the US, agreed. “Nobody should stimulate the idea that these things are of monetary value,” he said.

Dr Hurum says that a thriving fossil market already exists and that academics need to engage with it to acquire the best specimens. “It’s not new at all,” he said. “The American Museum of Natural History paid around $6.4 million for the first ever T. rex specimen. If fossils are legal and they are out there, why shouldn’t museums acquire them in the same way that galleries acquire art?”

He denies that the museum will get a substantial share of the income arising from publicity surrounding the fossil, including the publication of a book titled The Link and a US and British documentary on Ida. “We have the right to sell DVDs of the documentary in the museum shop and the museum will get a few per cent of royalties from the book,” he said. Dr Hurum added that he was not making any money from the publicity deals.

The Ida team is facing opposition over its scientific interpretation of the fossil, which it claims is a “missing link” between humans, apes and monkeys and their distant past. They suggest that, if not a direct ancestor, Ida lies on the broad ancestral branch, known as the haplorhines, that led to monkeys, apes and humans. “She’s on our ancestral line,” Dr Hurum said.

It is thought that the majority of palaeontologists believe that Ida is more likely to lie on the strepsirhine branch that led to modern-day lemurs.

Dr Beard says that further examination of the fossil will eventually lead to it being placed on the lemur line.

Others, including the broadcaster Sir David Attenborough, have been won over. “This little creature is going to show us our connection with the rest of all mammals. The link that they would have said until now is missing, is no longer missing,” he said.

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