We Are All Sarcopterygians!

A correspondent sent me THIS LINK. It concerns the transition from sea dwelling to land dwelling animals. In particular it deals with fish which had fins with bones in them - the Sarcopterygians. The evolution of tetrapods from these is well established and that leads on to dinosaurs, birds and every one of us.

The major fact of the article is the connection between walking and its expression in the genome. And tells of the little skate Leucoraja erinacea which is a fish which often walks on the sea bed. (The video in the article about this little fishie is fascinating!)

The genome of this fish has been examined and the bits of it used when it walks are found to be the same as those of mice!

So the "software" for walking was evolved many millions of years ago and is still used whenever I walk!

3D rendering of the tiktaalik, an extinct walking fish. Dotted Yeti/Shutterstock