Lee, Cynthia. “Walking fish reveal how our ancestors evolved onto land” Biology News Net Aug. 2014. http://www.biologynews.net/archives/2014/08/27/walking_fish_reveal_how_our_ancestors_evolved_onto_land.html
This article was about how fish evolved onto land, which could have led to how our ancestors evolved onto land. About 400 million years ago, fish began exploring the land around them and soon, they evolved into tetrapods. Tetrapods are today’s reptiles, amphibians, birds, and mammals. A fish called Polypterus can breathe air, walk on land, and they look a lot similar to ancient fish that evolved the same way. For example, when the fish walked on land, they would place their fins close to their bodies and lift their heads. Soon, their skeleton changed to become more elongate to adapt with how the fish walked by supporting their head and neck. The scientists have hypothesized that the behavioural changes reflect what may have occurred when fossil fish first started walking. One of the main issues in this article was how the scientists were going to compare fish walking and our ancestors walking on land today. The main question the author was investigating was how fish walking on land could have led our ancestors in the same direction. The evidence that supports the findings is found in old fossils of fish. By examining the fossils, they can see that the fish adapted to their environment by adapting their skeletons to walk on land. Often, there was controversy about how this fish were able to adapt their skeletons to be able to successfully walk on land.
My reaction to this article is that fish were able to adapt and evolve and that they led our ancestors into evolving on land as well. My opinion is that while fish adapted their skeletons to the environment around them, our ancestors were able to adapt the same way too. I agree with this article when it says that walking fish led to our ancestors evolving on land. I agree with this because when animals move into new environments, they adapt their motion and abilities to live with what’s around them. The new findings help mankind figure out how our ancestors were able to successfully live on land in many ways. The findings help mankind by providing facts about how the fish evolved from water to land. I was very interested in this article because I didn’t know how our ancestors evolved from water to land, and I wanted to learn more about our backround. I would recommend this article to another student because I think it is important for people to know how we evolved. This article relates to biology because it has to do with environment changes, adapting, and changing your lifestyle to match your new environment. One new word I learned from this article is the word tetrapod. A tetrapod is any vertebrate having four limbs or, as in the snake and whale, having had four-limbed ancestors.