Wednesday, April 05, 2006

The new fish out of water

Arctic fossils mark move to land
BBC News Science and Nature
Wednesday, 5 April 2006



Fossil animals found in Arctic Canada provide a snapshot of fish evolving into land animals, scientists say. The finds are giving researchers a fascinating insight into this key stage in the evolution of life on Earth. US palaeontologists have published details of the fossil "missing links" in the prestigious journal Nature. The 383 million-year-old specimens are described as crocodile-like animals with fins instead of limbs that probably lived in shallow water.

Before these finds, palaeontologists knew that lobe-finned fishes evolved into land-living creatures during the Devonian Period. But fossil records showed a gap between Panderichthys, a fish that lived about 385 million years ago which shows early signs of evolving land-friendly features, and Acanthostega, the earliest known tetrapod (four-limbed animals) dating from about 365 million years ago.

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