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The evolution of tetrapods began about 400 million years ago in the Devonian Period with the earliest tetrapods evolved from lobe-finned fishes. [1] Tetrapods (under the apomorphy-based definition used on this page) are categorized as animals in the biological superclass Tetrapoda, which includes all living and extinct amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals.
The tetrapod tongue is built from muscles that once controlled gill openings. The tongue is anchored to the hyoid bone, which was once the lower half of a pair of gill bars (the second pair after the ones that evolved into jaws). [89] [90] [91] The tongue did not evolve until the gills began to disappear.
Anatomically modern humans appear in Africa. [103] [104] [105] Around 50 ka they start colonising the other continents, replacing Neanderthals in Europe and other hominins in Asia. 70 ka Genetic bottleneck in humans (Toba catastrophe theory). 40 ka Last giant monitor lizards (Varanus priscus) die out. 35-25 ka Extinction of Neanderthals.
Tulerpeton is considered one of the first "tetrapods" (in the broad sense of the word) to have evolved.It is known from a fragmented skull, the left side of the pectoral girdle, and the entire right forelimb and right hindlimb along with a few belly scales.
The first tetrapods appeared in the fossil record over a period, the beginning and end of which are marked with extinction events. This lasted until the end of the Devonian 359 mya. The ancestors of all tetrapods began adapting to walking on land, their strong pectoral and pelvic fins gradually evolved into legs (see Tiktaalik). [38]
The Neanderthal DNA found in modern human genomes has long raised questions about ancient interbreeding. New studies offer a timeline of when that occurred and when ancient humans left Africa.
Other factors that caused aquatic tetrapods to spend more time on land caused the development of terrestrial hearing with the development of a tympanum within an otic notch and developed by convergent evolution at least three times. [10] There was also a change in the dermal bones of the skull in the aquatic tetrapods. [5]
Called the Anthropocene — and derived from the Greek terms for “human” and “new” — this epoch started sometime between 1950 and 1954, according to the scientists.