Gaining Ground: The Origin and Evolution of Tetrapods (Life of the Past)

Approximately 370 million years ago, a distant relative of the modern lungfish began to emerge from water and establish itself on land. Over the following 70 million years, this initial foothold expanded into a global colonization by increasingly diverse four-limbed creatures called tetrapods, which became the ancestors of all vertebrate land life. This edition of Jennifer A. Clack's book presents the complex story of tetrapod emergence and evolution. It begins by examining their closest relatives—lobe-fin fishes including lungfishes and coelacanths—and defines what constitutes a tetrapod. The book describes tetrapod anatomy, explains their relationship to other vertebrates, and examines the Devonian environment in which they evolved. It covers known and newly discovered species and traces the sequence and timing of anatomical changes that occurred during the transition from fish to tetrapod.