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Article: You can take a fish out of water. (research on how fish evolved into amphibians)
- Article from:
- Science News
- Article date:
- October 22, 1988
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1988 Science Service, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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You can take a fish out of water
From dinosaurs to dogs, all land vertebrates trace their ancestry back to the water. Sometime around 350 million years ago, fish-like amphibians crawled out of the water and established for the first time a foothold, or perhaps a fin-hold, on terra firma. While paleontologists believe these amphibians evolved from some primitive fish that had developed the ability to breathe air, they have debated for years which kind or kinds of fish spawned the earliest amphibians. Most theories have held that the ancestral fish must have had special organs, such as lungs, to help them breathe air directly. Yet a new study suggests this ...