The evolutionary chain regained a missing link this week thanks to the discovery of a 375-million-year-old fossil with characteristics of both aquatic and land-dwelling organisms. The finding illustrates one of the intermediate steps taken by our ancient forebears on their slow movement out of the oceans and onto land.
"This branch of tree of life is part of our branch of the tree of life," said Neil Shubin, a professor of organismal biology and anatomy at the University of Chicago and an author of a paper describing the newly discovered species in the April 6th issue of Nature. "We're talking about the branch of the tree of life that gave rise to everything that has limbs: from amphibians, to mammals, to birds, to reptiles, to us, of course."
"What we saw when we looked at this fossil was a real mosaic between characteristics of fish and characteristics that were previously thought to be only in land-living animals,"said Shubin. "It's showing us how creatures were assembled over evolutionary time to live on land.
I love science! It makes the morons appear even more moronic.
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Don't feed the trolls!
It just goes directly to their thighs.