How did animals go from swimming to walking? What changed about their bodies? In this video, the first walking fish never left the Oceans.
Scientists found that some of the very first sea creatures that evolved the ability to walk never left the oceans.
Researchers have uncovered new information about the nerve networks required for walking on land, suggesting the last common ancestor of sharks and mammals walked underwater about 400 million years ago – 50 million years before land animals first walked the earth.
The paper in Cell published by Cell Press, found that the ability to walk on land was present for millions of years before the first four-footed animal set foot on land, after examining the movements, gene expression and function of the little skate, a dominant member of the demersal fish community.
Co-author Dr Catherine Boisvert from Curtin University’s School of Molecular and Life Sciences said the research challenged previous ideas, pushing the estimated time of land-walking back 50 million years:
“The nerve networks needed for walking were thought to be unique to land animals that transitioned from fishes around 380 million years ago, but our research has uncovered that the little skate and some basal sharks already had those neural networks in place.
“We were able to determine these findings through footage that shows embryos of the little skate ’walking’ on the bottom of a tank. Their nerve impulses were then recorded and the gene expression in the nerves which control their fins were tested and compared to mammals and chickens.
“A list of genes activated in the nerves controlling the fins in the little skate was compiled and compared to the elephant shark and the catshark, showing they are conserved.”
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