Evolution missing link (fish to land animals)

Dairy Ashford · Apr 5, 2006

UK paper The Guardian is reporting a 375m year-old fossil discovery which may help document the fish-to-mammal stage of evolution. Will be genuinely curious about the eventual public response by the scientific leadership of the intelligent design movement.

Guardian Unlimited (UK)

Discovered: the missing link that solves a mystery of evolution

Alok Jha, science correspondent
Thursday April 6, 2006

Scientists have made one of the most important fossil finds in history: a missing link between fish and land animals, showing how creatures first walked out of the water and on to dry land more than 375m years ago.
Palaeontologists have said that the find, a crocodile-like animal called the Tiktaalik roseae and described today in the journal Nature, could become an icon of evolution in action - like Archaeopteryx, the famous fossil that bridged the gap between reptiles and birds.

As such, it will be a blow to proponents of intelligent design, who claim that the many gaps in the fossil record show evidence of some higher power.

Richard Dawkins, the evolutionary biologist, said: "Our emergence on to the land is one of the more significant rites of passage in our evolutionary history, and Tiktaalik is an important link in the story."

Tiktaalik - the name means "a large, shallow-water fish" in the Inuit language Inuktikuk - shows that the evolution of animals from living in water to living on land happened gradually, with fish first living in shallow water.

The animal lived in the Devonian era lasting from 417m to 354m years ago, and had a skull, neck, and ribs similar to early limbed animals (known as tetrapods), as well as a more primitive jaw, fins, and scales akin to fish.

The scientists who discovered it say the animal was a predator with sharp teeth, a crocodile-like head, and a body that grew up to 2.75 metres (9ft) long.

"It's very important for a number of reasons, one of which is simply the fact that it's so well-preserved and complete," said Jennifer Clack, a paleontologist at Cambridge University and author of an accompanying article in Nature.

Scientists have previously been able to trace the transition of fish into limbed animals only crudely over the millions of years they anticipate the process took place. They suspected that an animal which bridged the gap between fish and land-based tetrapods must have existed - but, until now, there had been scant evidence of one.

"Tiktaalik blurs the boundary between fish and land-living animal both in terms of its anatomy and its way of life," said Neil Shubin, a biologist at the University of Chicago, and a leader of the expedition which found Tiktaalik.

The near-pristine fossil was found on Ellesmere Island, Canada, which is 600 miles from the north pole in the Arctic Circle.

Scientists from the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, the University of Chicago, and Harvard University led several expeditions into the inhospitable icy desert to search for the fossils.

The find is the first complete evidence of an animal that was on the verge of the transition from water to land. "The find is a dream come true," said Ted Daeschler of the Academy of Natural Sciences.

"We knew that the rocks on Ellesmere Island offered a glimpse into the right time period and were formed in the right kinds of environments to provide the potential for finding fossils documenting this important evolutionary transition."

When Tiktaalik lived, the Canadian Arctic region was part of a land mass which straddled the equator. Like the Amazon basin today, it had a subtropical climate and the animal lived in small streams. The skeleton indicates that it could support its body under the force of gravity.

Farish Jenkins, an evolutionary biologist at Harvard University said: "This represents a critical early phase in the evolution of all limbed animals, including humans - albeit a very ancient step." Tiktaalik also gives biologists a new understanding of how fins turned into limbs. Its fin contains bones that compare to the upper arm, forearm and primitive parts of the hand of land-living animals.

"Most of the major joints of the fin are functional in this fish," Professor Shubin said.

"The shoulder, elbow and even parts of the wrist are already there and working in ways similar to the earliest land-living animals."

Dr Clack said that, judging from the fossil, the first evolutionary transition from sea to land probably involved learning how to breathe air. "Tiktaalik has lost a series of bones that, in fishes, covers the gill region and helps to operate the gill-breathing mechanism," she said. "The air-breathing mechanism it had would have been elaborated and having lost the series of bones that lies between the head and the shoulder girdle means it's got a neck, it can raise its head more easily in order to gulp the air.

"The flexible robust limbs appear to be connected with pushing the head out of the water to breathe the air."

H Richard Lane, director of sedimentary geology and palaeobiology at the US National Science Foundation, said: "These exciting discoveries are providing fossil Rosetta stones for a deeper understanding of this evolutionary milestone - fish to land-roaming tetrapods."

A cast of the fossil goes on display at the Science Museum in South Kensington central London today.
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boomer83 · Apr 6, 2006

You probably believe man came from monkeys too.

Well I hate to burst your bubble, but your the monkey if you believe that jargon.

FranchiseBlade · Apr 6, 2006

boomer83 said:

You probably believe man came from monkeys too.

Well I hate to burst your bubble, but your the monkey if you believe that jargon.
Click to expand...

There aren't many if any evolutionists who believe man came from monkies.

What is believed and supported by available fact is that men and monkies came from a common ancestoral line.

Sishir Chang · Apr 6, 2006

boomer83 said:

You probably believe man came from monkeys too.

Well I hate to burst your bubble, but your the monkey if you believe that jargon.
Click to expand...

HEY HEY WE'RE THE MONKEYS!

There is another thread with this same topic.

No Worries · Apr 6, 2006

Sishir Chang said:

HEY HEY WE'RE THE MONKEYS!

There is another thread with this same topic.
Click to expand...

A thread about bad late 60s pop groups?

MR. MEOWGI · Apr 6, 2006

boomer83 said:

You probably believe man came from monkeys too.

Well I hate to burst your bubble, but your the monkey if you believe that jargon.
Click to expand...

Is this post serious? I can't tell.

losttexan · Apr 6, 2006

boomer83 said:

You probably believe man came from monkeys too.

Well I hate to burst your bubble, but your the monkey if you believe that jargon.
Click to expand...

he's joking,....right?

nyquil82 · Apr 6, 2006

God put it there to test us. Stay strong Christian soldiers!

rimrocker · Apr 6, 2006

Sishir Chang said:

There is another thread with this same topic.
Click to expand...

And it's just as serious.

Sishir Chang · Apr 6, 2006

No Worries said:

A thread about bad late 60s pop groups?
Click to expand...

I'm sure there's plenty of threads on that topic. For instance "Corporate manufactured Beatles copy undermines US Constitution."

Zboy · Apr 6, 2006

Old news. Already seen "Man from Atlantis"

underoverup · Apr 6, 2006

boomer83 said:

You probably believe man came from monkeys too.

Well I hate to burst your bubble, but your the monkey if you believe that jargon.
Click to expand...

lol, boomer83 is the early favorite for angriest/ craziest poster of the year.

personally, i think we evolved from donkeys

No Worries · Apr 6, 2006

underoverup said:

lol, boomer83 is the early favorite for angriest/ craziest poster of the year.

personally, i think we evolved from donkeys
Click to expand...

Aceshigh7 has got my vote.

Personally I think we evolved from single cell amoebas, despite the fact my mom dad looked nothing like amoebas.

SWTsig · Apr 6, 2006

No Worries said:

Aceshigh7 has got my vote.

Personally I think we evolved from single cell amoebas, despite the fact my mom dad looked nothing like amoebas.
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amoebas are mentioned NOWHERE in the bible.

you, sir, are a dolt!

Two Sandwiches · Apr 6, 2006

underoverup said:

personally, i think we evolved from donkeys
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Psssht.

I think we evolved from hippos.

Why else would the world be so fat?

losttexan · Apr 6, 2006

SWTsig said:

amoebas are mentioned NOWHERE in the bible.

you, sir, are a dolt!
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and yet amoebas exsist. how can this be? amoebas exsist and yet not mentioned in he bible. maybe not everything is in the bible?

droxford · Apr 6, 2006

I believe that God made us through evolution.

SWTsig · Apr 6, 2006

losttexan said:

and yet amoebas exsist. how can this be? amoebas exsist and yet not mentioned in he bible. maybe not everything is in the bible?
Click to expand...

blasphemy!

Buck Turgidson · Apr 6, 2006

losttexan said:

and yet amoebas exsist. how can this be? amoebas exsist and yet not mentioned in he bible. maybe not everything is in the bible?
Click to expand...

Carl Everett is gonna kick your ass.

Sishir Chang · Apr 6, 2006

underoverup said:

i think we evolved from donkeys
Click to expand...

HEY HEY WE'RE THE DONKEYS!

PEOPLE SAY WE DONKEY AROUND!

BUT WE'RE TOO BUSY SINGING

TO PUT ANYBODY DOWN...

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