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NSF PR 04-035 - April 01, 2004

Media contact: Cheryl Dybas, NSF (703) 292-7734 cdybas@nsf.gov
Program contact: Rich Lane, NSF (703) 292-8550 hlane@nsf.gov






New Fossil Links Four-legged Land Animals to Ancient Fish

"Sketch depicts limb bone, which bridges the evolutionary gap between fishes and amphibians.
Credit: Neil Shubin, University of Chicago
Select image for larger version
(Size: 323KB)


Image of location where humerus bone was discovered.
Credit: Neil Shubin, University of Chicago
Select image for larger version
(Size: 434KB)


Image of location where humerus bone was discovered.
Credit: Neil Shubin, University of Chicago
Select image for larger version
(Size: 134KB)


Sketch depicts limb bone, which bridges the evolutionary gap between fishes and amphibians.
Credit: Neil Shubin, University of Chicago
Select image for larger version
(Size: 270KB)

Larger versions of all images from this document
Note About Images
Arlington, Va.—How land-living animals evolved from fish has long been a scientific puzzle. A key missing piece has been knowledge of how the fins of fish transformed into the arms and legs of our ancestors. In this week's issue of the journal Science, paleontologists Neil Shubin and Michael Coates from the University of Chicago and Ted Daeschler from the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, describe a remarkable fossil that bridges the gap between fish and amphibian and provides a glimpse of the structure and function changes from fin to limb.

The fossil, a 365-million-year-old arm bone, or humerus, shares features with primitive fish fins but also has characteristics of a true limb bone. Discovered near a highway roadside in north-central Penn., the bone is the earliest of its kind from any limbed animal.

"It has long been understood that the first four-legged creatures on land arose from the lobed-finned fishes in the Devonian Period," said Rich Lane, director of the National Science Foundation's (NSF) geology and paleontology program. "Through this work, we've learned that fish developed the ability to prop their bodies through modification of their fins, leading to the emergence of tetrapod limbs."

NSF, the independent federal agency that supports fundamental research and education across all fields of science and engineering, funded the research.

The bone's structure reveals an animal that had powerful forelimbs, with extensive areas for the attachment of muscles at the shoulder. "The size and extent of these muscles means that the humerus played a significant role in the support and movement of the animal," reported Shubin. "These muscles would have been important in propping the body up and pushing it off of the ground."

Interestingly, modern-day fish have smaller versions of the muscles. According to Coates, "When this humerus is compared to those of closely-related fish, it becomes clear that the ability to prop the body is more ancient than we previously thought. This means that many of the features we thought evolved to allow for life on land originally evolved in fish living in aquatic ecosystems."

The layered rock along the Clinton County, Penn., roadside were deposited by ancient stream systems that flowed during the Devonian Period, about 365 million years ago. Enclosed in the rocks is fossil evidence of an ecosystem teeming with plant and animal life. "We found a number of interesting fossils at the site," reported Daeschler, who uncovered the fossil in 1993. "But the significance of this specimen went unnoticed for several years because only a small portion of the bone was exposed and most of it lay encased in a brick-sized piece of red sandstone."

Not until three years ago, when Fred Mullison, the fossil preparator at the Academy of Natural Sciences, excavated the bone from the rock, did the importance of the new specimen become evident.

The work was also funded by a grant from the National Geographic Society."


-NSF-



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Receive official NSF news electronically through the e-mail delivery system, NSFnews. To subscribe, send an e-mail message to join-nsfnews@lists.nsf.gov. In the body of the message, type "subscribe nsfnews" and

http://www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/newsroom/pr.cfm?ni=63
 
Now that takes leaps of faith. Someone's watched too many Frankenstein movies :lol:

Looks like the crocodile has some ancient competition.

Explain the 2 different stories: These folks need to get their stories straight:

Justice

Story #1:

http://www.newscientist.com/news/print. ... ns99992500
Fishy fossil reveals first steps on land

19:00 July 02, 2003

NewScientist.com news service

A fishy four-legged fossil discovered in Scotland is finally shedding light on the mystery of how animals first crawled onto land.

Paleontologists have been searching for years for an animal that would bridge the critical evolutionary gap between 335 million and 365 million years ago when aquatic animals first made it out of the water.

The new creature, a type of tetrapod, is the only intact skeleton from this time period ever unearthed. It resembles an ungainly crocodile with a whip-like tail and the three-foot long amphibian had the sensory apparatus of a fish, but limbs and feet adapted for life on solid ground.

The unique fossil is around 345 million years old and has been dubbed Pederpes, meaning rock crawler. "It's by far the earliest leg that looks like it could have been used on land," says Jennifer Clack of the University Museum of Zoology in Cambridge UK, who reports the discovery Nature. Previously, only a few fragments of tetrapod legs and shoulders had been found in Canada from this time gap. Before the gap, tetrapods had evolved limbs for paddling, but not walking. Immediately after the gap, they were running all over the land.

Stroke of luck

Until now, nobody knew exactly how the change happened, says paleontologist Robert Carroll of McGill University in Montreal, but Pederpes could change that.

"It's giving us an idea of what changes were made in what sequence and over what period of time," he says. It could also help scientists to understand the interrelationships of all the land vertebrates that followed, he adds.

The discovery was a stroke of luck, says Clack. The fossil was collected in 1971. But it was misidentified as a type of fish called a rhizodont and the fossil was relegated to the basement of the Hunterian Museum in Glasgow.

It lay there for 25 years until one of Clack's graduate students picked it up while trawling for rhizodonts for his dissertation work. When he brought it back to Cambridge, Clack saw immediately that it was in fact an early tetrapod. "When we combined it with the date, it was like finding the Holy Grail," she says.
 
New Fossil Links Four-legged Land Animals to Ancient Fish

Story #2

New Fossil Links Four-legged Land Animals to Ancient Fish: April 01, 2004

http://www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/newsroom/pr.cfm?ni=63

1094295cover_th.jpg

{Sketch depicts limb bone, which bridges the evolutionary gap between fishes and amphibians. Credit: Neil Shubin, University of Chicago}

Arlington, Va.â€â€How land-living animals evolved from fish has long been a scientific puzzle. A key missing piece has been knowledge of how the fins of fish transformed into the arms and legs of our ancestors. In this week's issue of the journal Science, paleontologists Neil Shubin and Michael Coates from the University of Chicago and Ted Daeschler from the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, describe a remarkable fossil that bridges the gap between fish and amphibian and provides a glimpse of the structure and function changes from fin to limb.

The fossil, a 365-million-year-old arm bone, or humerus, shares features with primitive fish fins but also has characteristics of a true limb bone. Discovered near a highway roadside in north-central Penn., the bone is the earliest of its kind from any limbed animal.

"It has long been understood that the first four-legged creatures on land arose from the lobed-finned fishes in the Devonian Period," said Rich Lane, director of the National Science Foundation's (NSF) geology and paleontology program. "Through this work, we've learned that fish developed the ability to prop their bodies through modification of their fins, leading to the emergence of tetrapod limbs."

NSF, the independent federal agency that supports fundamental research and education across all fields of science and engineering, funded the research.

The bone's structure reveals an animal that had powerful forelimbs, with extensive areas for the attachment of muscles at the shoulder. "The size and extent of these muscles means that the humerus played a significant role in the support and movement of the animal," reported Shubin. "These muscles would have been important in propping the body up and pushing it off of the ground."

Interestingly, modern-day fish have smaller versions of the muscles. According to Coates, "When this humerus is compared to those of closely-related fish, it becomes clear that the ability to prop the body is more ancient than we previously thought. This means that many of the features we thought evolved to allow for life on land originally evolved in fish living in aquatic ecosystems."

The layered rock along the Clinton County, Penn., roadside were deposited by ancient stream systems that flowed during the Devonian Period, about 365 million years ago. Enclosed in the rocks is fossil evidence of an ecosystem teeming with plant and animal life. "We found a number of interesting fossils at the site," reported Daeschler, who uncovered the fossil in 1993. "But the significance of this specimen went unnoticed for several years because only a small portion of the bone was exposed and most of it lay encased in a brick-sized piece of red sandstone."

Not until three years ago, when Fred Mullison, the fossil preparator at the Academy of Natural Sciences, excavated the bone from the rock, did the importance of the new specimen become evident.

The work was also funded by a grant from the National Geographic Society.
 
true to form

true to form,that was funny. It takes giant leaps of faith to believe that evolution religion,but a sinful world does not want the truth,nor can it accept the truth. In the last days there will be a great falling away. Evolution is mixing with pagan false religion right now to form the one world religion and they say we are the ones whose mental health is challenged. What a sack of dead bones,huh?
this should not surprise us or make us go into shock because we were warned that these days were coming in the bible.
here is a few great sites: http://www.evolutiondocumentary.com
evolutionary.com
:Fade-color
 
Just a thought but for those of you who think science is full of deception and half truths just remember to keep this in mind if you ever need a heart valve operation or brain surgery.
 
I'm trying to see the contradiction in the two reports. However, it is true that reading about these discoveries in the popular press will often mislead one.

The only way to be sure is to read the actual literature.
 
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