The time of the appearance of the first tetrapods on Earth is named
Scientists from Harvard have conducted research to find the answer to one of the most important questions of evolution: when did the first four-legged creatures appear on Earth. It is believed that they developed from fish between the Middle and Late Devonian (about 400-360 million years ago), but information about this period remained extremely incomplete for a long time, according to Nature Ecology and Evolution.
The authors of the scientific work applied recently developed statistical methods (Bayesian evolutionary analysis) to accurately estimate the time and pace of evolution of tetrapods. The Bayesian method was originally used to study viruses and only later was adapted for paleontology. The data obtained as a result of excavations were also taken into account.
“We were able to determine a very precise date of the origin of tetrapods – about 390 million years ago. The first known fossil is 15 million years younger than this age, ”said Professor Stephanie Pearce.
The study showed that the ancestors and relatives of tetrapods were well adapted to life in the water. But, having got out on land, the animals began to develop rapidly and maintained a high rate of evolution for 30 million years.
The skulls and jaws changed the fastest. Scientists have suggested that these changes played an important role in the transition from aquatic to terrestrial species. So, animals have learned to bite, and not to draw in prey, like fish.
“The evolution of limbs for life on land was also important, but it happened at a later stage, when animals had already settled on Earth,” the authors noted.
Scientists also explained that in the beginning there were a very limited number of tetrapod species. Only ten million years later, they began to divide into different families, each of which followed its own path of evolution.
Earlier it was reported that scientists have reconstructed the skull of an amphibian. She lived 340 million years ago.
