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Thus, those very few tetrapod fossils found in this "gap" are all the more prized by palaeontologists because they document these significant changes and clarify their history. The transition from an aquatic, lobe-finned fish to an air-breathing amphibian was a significant and fundamental one in the evolutionary history of the vertebrates.
As aquatic tetrapods began their transition to land, several skeletal changes are thought to have occurred to allow for movement and respiration on land. Some adaptations required to adjust to non-aquatic life include the movement and use of alternating limbs, the use of pelvic appendages as sturdy propulsors, and the use of a solid surface at ...
It is included here to complete the transition of lobe-finned fishes to tetrapods, even though Pederpes is no longer a fish. By the late Devonian, land plants had stabilized freshwater habitats, allowing the first wetland ecosystems to develop, with increasingly complex food webs that afforded new opportunities.
The vertebrate land invasion refers to the transition of vertebrate animals from being aquatic/semiaquatic to predominantly terrestrial during the Late Devonian period. This transition allowed some vertebrates to escape competitive pressure from other aquatic animals and explore niches on land, [1] which eventually established the vertebrates as the dominant terrestrial phylum.
The Devonian period (419–359 Mya), also known as the Age of Fishes, saw the development of early sharks, armoured placoderms and various lobe-finned fish, including the tetrapod transitional species. The evolution of fish began about 530 million years ago during the Cambrian explosion.
A notable characteristic that make a tetrapod's skull different from a fish's are the relative frontal and rear portion lengths. The fish had a long rear portion while the front was short; the orbital vacuities were thus located towards the anterior end. In the tetrapod, the front of the skull lengthened, positioning the orbits farther back on ...
Therefore, Panderichthys can only be a "late-surviving relic", [14] showing traits that evolved during the transition from fish-like creatures to tetrapods, but whose date does not reflect that transition. The tracks "force a radical reassessment of the timing, ecology and environmental setting of the fish–tetrapod transition, as well as the ...
While in traditional classification tetrapods and fish are seen as two different groups, phylogenetically tetrapods are considered a branch of fish. Thus, with cladistics there is no longer a transition between established groups, and the term "transitional fossils" is a misnomer. Differentiation occurs within groups, represented as branches in ...