Science
Related: About this forumResearchers Find Fish That Walks the Way Land Vertebrates Do
Its 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, theyve 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 evolutions signature events. In a cave in Thailand, theyve 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
Wounded Bear
(58,601 posts)but this sure looks like one.
jhart3333
(332 posts)cstanleytech
(26,236 posts)a great deal like the ichthyosaurs.
Wounded Bear
(58,601 posts)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)Slathered himself in panko, dove right into the frying pan, snf blanketed himself in crab meat.
Now, that's evolution!
jmowreader
(50,528 posts)Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)SoapBox
(18,791 posts)...Land Shark!
LiberalEsto
(22,845 posts)SCantiGOP
(13,865 posts)Oops, wrong forum.