Fishy fossil reveals first steps on land

New Scientist ^ | July 3, 2002 | Betsy Mason

[gcruse]

Fishy fossil reveals first steps on land

19:00 03 July 02

Betsy Mason

A fishy four-legged fossil discovered in Scotland is finally shedding light on the mystery of how animals first crawled onto land.

Paleontologists have been searching for years for an animal that would bridge the critical evolutionary gap between 335 million and 365 million years ago when aquatic animals first made it out of the water.

The new creature, a type of tetrapod, is the only intact skeleton from this time period ever unearthed. It resembles an ungainly crocodile with a whip-like tail and the three-foot long amphibian had the sensory apparatus of a fish, but limbs and feet adapted for life on solid ground.

The unique fossil is around 345 million years old and has been dubbed Pederpes, meaning rock crawler. "It's by far the earliest leg that looks like it could have been used on land," says Jennifer Clack of the University Museum of Zoology in Cambridge UK, who reports the discovery Nature.

Previously, only a few fragments of tetrapod legs and shoulders had been found in Canada from this time gap. Before the gap, tetrapods had evolved limbs for paddling, but not walking. Immediately after the gap, they were running all over the land.

Stroke of luck

Until now, nobody knew exactly how the change happened, says paleontologist Robert Carroll of McGill University in Montreal, but Pederpes could change that.

"It's giving us an idea of what changes were made in what sequence and over what period of time," he says. It could also help scientists to understand the interrelationships of all the land vertebrates that followed, he adds.

The discovery was a stroke of luck, says Clack. The fossil was collected in 1971. But it was misidentified as a type of fish called a rhizodont and the fossil was relegated to the basement of the Hunterian Museum in Glasgow.

It lay there for 25 years until one of Clack's graduate students picked it up while trawling for rhizodonts for his dissertation work. When he brought it back to Cambridge, Clack saw immediately that it was in fact an early tetrapod. "When we combined it with the date, it was like finding the Holy Grail," she says.

Journal reference: Nature (vol 418, p 72)

19:00 03 July 02

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[tet68]

The legendary Haggis preserved in stone!

Will wonders never cease?

[Jorge]

Oh please. I can't believe people are still falling for this nonsense.

[parsifal]

Great post! This article has legs. parsy.

[SBeck]

And it is nonsense because?

[general_re]

One more gap filled in...

[John H K]

Oh, the Creationists think that all, oh, several million fossils revealing anything important about evolution have been faked.

They also like to cover their eyes, stick fingers in their ears, and scream "Therearenotransitionalfossilstherearenotransitionalfossilstherearenotransitionalfossils" for hours on end.

The other fun thing is that they won't accept evolution till EVERY single fossil of EVERY organism is found; they complain about "missing links" between organism A and organism E; when someone finds a fossil transitional between A and E, let's call it organism C, then they start frantically raving about "there's no transitional fossils" because no one has found a fossil for organisms B and D.

[Physicist]

Oh please. I can't believe people are still falling for this nonsense.

There they go again, playing the "evidence" card.

[Physicist]

One more gap filled in...

...and two more gaps created.

[Jorge]

, the Creationists think that all, oh, several million fossils revealing anything important about evolution have been faked.

y also like to cover their eyes, stick fingers in their ears, and scream "Therearenotransitionalfossilstherearenotransitionalfossilstherearenotransitionalfossils" for hours on end.

Actually over the years many evolutionists themselves have admitted the fossil record reveals no transitional forms.

In their book on the principles of paleontology, the two evolutionists, Raup and Stanley say;

"Unfortunately, the origins of most higher categories are shrouded in mystery; commonly new higher categories appear abruptly in the fossil record without evidence of transitional forms." ( D. M. Raup and S. M. Stanley, "Principles of Paleontology", 1971, W. H. Freeman and Co., San Francisco, p. 306.)

The botanical evolutionist Professor E.J.H Corner of the Cambridge University Botany school said; " I still think, that to be unprejudiced, the fossil record of the plants is in favor of special CREATION." ( E.J.H. Corner, "Contemporary Botanical Thought", A. M. MacLeod and L.S.Cobley, eds., 1961, Quadrangle Books, Chicago.)

The famous evolutionist, Dr. Clark says;

"No matter how far back we go in the fossil record or previous animal life upon earth, we find no trace of any animal forms which are intermediatebetween the various major groups."
( A.H. Clark, "The New Evolution: Zoogenesis", 1930, Williams and Wilkins, Baltimore, MD, USA p. 189.)

[gcruse]

 
Actually over the years many evolutionists themselves
have admitted the fossil record reveals no transitional forms.

"No transitional forms" is incorrect.  There are a few.
And this one is a major find.
 

[general_re]

I know (he said, mournfully). You can have a nice, neat chain - A, B, C - and there will be folks wanting the halfway point between A and B, and halfway between A and A-1/2, and on and on...

[SBeck]

stick fingers in their ears

Must make for some mighty waxy fingers. Oh well, it's a free country.

[Jorge]

There they go again, playing the "evidence" card.

Unfortunately, what some people accept as "evidence" doesn't pass the laugh test.

[Major Matt Mason]

The new creature, a type of tetrapod, is the only intact skeleton from this time period ever unearthed. It resembles an ungainly crocodile with a whip-like tail and the three-foot long amphibian had the sensory apparatus of a fish, but limbs and feet adapted for life on solid ground.

Might this not simply be a crocodile, or a variation thereof? If so, how does this prove evolution? The crocodile is considered a prehistoric animal, which means that this creature has not evolved one iota over the course of millions of years. The BS Detector is off the charts on this one.

This article has the same feel to it as the articles about environmentalists who claim to have found new and even more convincing proof of global warming and its causes. Most of the findings, upon closer review, ususally end up being bogus and formed to fit a certain theory, with nary a peep being heard again from the authors. I suspect this will be the case with our little crocodile friend.

[bzrd]

Is "it looks like it could have been used on land", a scientific statement?

Is the assumption that it lived on land warranted, given the evidence?

If an observor who didn't assume that "evolution has happened" found the same fossil, what could he/she conclude, based on the same evidence?

Brian.

[dighton]

One of these days, some genius will work evolution, drugs and Lincoln into a single post. EASILY good for 10,000 replies.

[Jorge]

"No transitional forms" is incorrect. There are a few. And this one is a major find.

Oh,the poster I was responding to claimed there were several million fossils showing transitional forms.
You say there are a few.
That is of course debatable.
The idea that there are several million is simply absurd.

[forsnax5]

Pictures?

[general_re]

"Resolved: The missing link between man and ape, Abraham Lincoln, is directly responsible for the scourge of crack upon the inner city."

Yeah, that's got legs...