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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.
In effect, "tetrapod" is a name reserved solely for animals which lie among living tetrapods, so-called crown tetrapods. This is a node-based clade , a group with a common ancestry descended from a single "node" (the node being the nearest common ancestor of living species).
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]
Colosteus is an extinct genus of colosteid tetrapod from the Late Carboniferous (late Westphalian stage) of Ohio.Its remains have been found at the Linton site in Saline Township, Ohio, where it is one of the most common tetrapods, [1] and at the Five Points site in Mahoning County, Ohio. [2]
Tuditanidae is an extinct family of microsaurian tetrapods. Fossils have been found from Nova Scotia, Ohio, and the Czech Republic and are Late Carboniferous in age. [1] Tuditanids were medium-sized terrestrial microsaurs that resembled lizards.
Colosteidae is a family of stegocephalians (stem-group tetrapods) that lived in the Carboniferous period. [1] They possessed a variety of characteristics from different tetrapod or stem-tetrapod groups, which made them historically difficult to classify.
A paleontologist hailed the discovery as "truly an unusual find," adding it helped explain the relationships in the prehistoric food chain.
Stegocephali was re-established to replace the broad definition of Tetrapoda, resolving the usage of two conflicting definitions in discussions of tetrapod evolution. Stegocephali was coined in 1868 by the American paleontologist Edward Drinker Cope , who used it as a general category of prehistoric amphibians.