Fish Fossil Reclassified as the Earliest Vertebrate
From Times staff and wire reports
A fossil found in 1971 has been re-identified as the earliest known animal built to walk on land, a salamander-like creature that marked a previously unknown stage in the evolution of fish into the ancestor of all vertebrates today.
The toothy animal, Pederpes finneyae, lived from 348 million to 344 million years ago in what is now Dumbarton, Scotland. It was about a yard long and probably split its time between the water and land, where it walked on four feet, said a Cambridge University Museum of Zoology official.
Pederpes is formally described in Thursday’s issue of Nature. The creature’s nearly complete fossil skeleton had lain, mislabeled as a fish, in a Scottish museum since its discovery 31 years ago.
