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What makes Tiktaalik a perfect transition species from fish to tetrapods?
Like a fish, the fossil of Tiktaalik shows evidence of scales, gills, and fins. But inside the fins, Tiktaalik contains limb bones that are characteristic of an early tetrapod. The lungs of lungfish and tetrapods are homologous, which means they evolved from a common ancestor that had lungs.
What evidence does the fossil Tiktaalik provide to the evolution of tetrapods?
Tiktaalik roseae has features of the skull, neck, ribs and appendages that are shared with the earliest limbed animals (tetrapods), as well as fishlike features such as scales and fin rays. This mosaic of features makes it a textbook example of a transitional fossil, say paleontologists.
Why is Tiktaalik considered a transitional fossil?
Why is Tiktaalik considered a transitional fossil? It is a hybrid of an aquatic and terrestrial vertebrate. If a fossil is found between of two layers of rock with relative dates of 570 mya and 530 mya, what is the approximate age of the fossil? Older than 530 mya, but younger than 570 mya.
Why is Tiktaalik important?
Zerina Johanson, a vertebrate palaeontologist at the Natural History Museum in London, said: “Tiktaalik is one of the most important fish fossils for unravelling the evolutionary transition from fish living in water to tetrapods living on land.
What is the significance of the Tiktaalik?
What evolved from Tiktaalik?
Tiktaalik lived approximately 375 million years ago. It is representative of the transition between non-tetrapod vertebrates (fish) such as Panderichthys, known from fossils 380 million years old, and early tetrapods such as Acanthostega and Ichthyostega, known from fossils about 365 million years old.
Where do scientists believe Tiktaalik?
The first well-preserved Tiktaalik fossils were found in 2004 on Ellesmere Island in Nunavut, Canada. The discovery, made by Edward B….Tiktaalik.
| Tiktaalik Temporal range: Late Devonian, | |
|---|---|
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Clade: | Stegocephalia |
| Genus: | †Tiktaalik Daeschler, Shubin & Jenkins, 2006 |