Thursday, April 06, 2006

A Giant Step Toward Land Animal Evolution

From the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadephia comes this press release:

"The recent discovery above the Arctic Circle of remarkably well preserved fossils from a new species of ancient fish provides a key marker in the evolutionary transition of fish to limbed animals...Dr. Ted Daeschler of The Academy of Natural Sciences and his colleagues announced the discovery of 375-million-year-old fossils with numerous features that place them squarely at the evolutionary transition from fish to limbed animals. The new species has a skull, neck, ribs and part of a fin like the earliest limbed animals, but also has fins and scales like a fish. The new species, named Tiktaalik roseae, shows that the evolution from life in water to life on land happened gradually in fish living in shallow water..."

Comment: wow.

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