‘A completely different story’: 300 million-year-old fossils reveal the first vertebrate land dwellers weren’t what we thought, researchers claim
Never-before-seen fossils of newly hatched crocodile-like creatures are shining new light on how our aquatic ancestors conquered land.
Early four-limbed vertebrates (tetrapods), which would eventually give rise to humans, took their first steps on land in the Devonian period, some 419 million to 359 million years ago, marking one of the most important periods in the evolutionary history of animals.
Now, a new study published Thursday (June 18) in the journal Science has revealed that these early tetrapods were less like amphibians and more like us. Rather than having a tadpole phase in their development, as many amphibians do today, new evidence suggests that they were direct developers — growing from smaller to bigger versions of themselves, like their ancestors, humans and many other animals.
