Fossil Fills Out Water-Land Leap
Scientists say a fossil of a four-legged fish sheds new light on the process of evolution.
The creature had a fish-like body but the head of an animal more suited to land than water.
The researchers' study, published in the journal Nature, says Ventastega curonica would have looked similar to a small alligator.
Scientists say the 365-million-year-old species eventually became an evolutionary dead end.
About one hundred million years before dinosaurs began to roam the Earth, Ventastega was to be found in the shallow waters and tidal estuaries of modern day Latvia.
According to lead author, Professor Per Ahlberg, from Uppsala University, Sweden, this creature had the head of a tetrapod, an animal adapted to live on land. The body, though, was fish-like but with four primitive flippers...
