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progressoid

(49,947 posts)
Fri Mar 25, 2016, 01:02 AM Mar 2016

Researchers Find Fish That Walks the Way Land Vertebrates Do

It’s one of the most famous chapters in evolution, so familiar that it regularly inspires New Yorker cartoons: Some 375 million years ago, our ancestors emerged from the sea, evolving from swimming fish to vertebrates that walked on land.

Scientists still puzzle over exactly how the transition from sea to land took place. For the most part, they’ve had to rely on information gleaned from fossils of some of the intermediate species.

But now a team of researchers has found a remarkable parallel to one of evolution’s signature events. In a cave in Thailand, they’ve discovered that a blind fish walks the way land vertebrates do.

The waterfall-climbing cave fish, Cryptotora thamicola, has even evolved many of the skeletal features that our ancestors did for walking, including a full-blown pelvis.

...http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/25/science/researchers-find-fish-that-walks-the-way-land-vertebrates-do.html?_r=0


An excerpt from a video of the cave fish walking up an incline of approximately 90 degrees on an aquarium wall in the direction of a trickle of water. Credit Apinun Suvarnaraksha

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Researchers Find Fish That Walks the Way Land Vertebrates Do (Original Post) progressoid Mar 2016 OP
I know in scientific terms, there's no such thing as a missing link... Wounded Bear Mar 2016 #1
I know what you mean... jhart3333 Mar 2016 #5
More likely its simply a case of convergent evolution like how modern dolphins have evolved to look cstanleytech Mar 2016 #9
Absolutely... Wounded Bear Mar 2016 #10
I had a grouper walk right into my kitchen the other day. Fuddnik Mar 2016 #2
How big of a frying pan do you have? jmowreader Mar 2016 #4
......"candy-gram"....... Spitfire of ATJ Mar 2016 #3
Ha! SoapBox Mar 2016 #6
Is this about the Ted Cruz sex scandals? LiberalEsto Mar 2016 #7
What hath God wrought? SCantiGOP Mar 2016 #8

cstanleytech

(26,236 posts)
9. More likely its simply a case of convergent evolution like how modern dolphins have evolved to look
Sat Mar 26, 2016, 01:12 AM
Mar 2016

a great deal like the ichthyosaurs.

Wounded Bear

(58,601 posts)
10. Absolutely...
Sat Mar 26, 2016, 02:16 AM
Mar 2016

given similar environments, nature will often produce similar looking animals to operate in them. Not always, but often enough to realize it isn't just random chance.

Fuddnik

(8,846 posts)
2. I had a grouper walk right into my kitchen the other day.
Fri Mar 25, 2016, 01:31 AM
Mar 2016

Slathered himself in panko, dove right into the frying pan, snf blanketed himself in crab meat.

Now, that's evolution!

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