IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v438y2005i7071d10.1038_nature04119.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The pelvic fin and girdle of Panderichthys and the origin of tetrapod locomotion

Author

Listed:
  • Catherine A. Boisvert

    (Evolutionary Biology Centre, Uppsala University)

Abstract

Ready for a walk Before the first four-legged animal or tetrapod took to the land about 364 million years ago its fish ancestors needed to acquire many things, including legs and their supporting elements, the girdles. Panderichthys is the closest fossil fish relative of tetrapods and its pectoral fins (would-be front legs) and shoulder girdle are transitional between fishes and tetrapods. Its pelvic fins (hind legs) are very important in understanding how fish climbed out of water and now for the first time a fossil with pelvic fin and supporting pelvis has been found. They show that Panderichthys could have moved on land by anchoring its fins on the ground and dragging itself along in a manner similar to that of the modern walking catfish.

Suggested Citation

  • Catherine A. Boisvert, 2005. "The pelvic fin and girdle of Panderichthys and the origin of tetrapod locomotion," Nature, Nature, vol. 438(7071), pages 1145-1147, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:438:y:2005:i:7071:d:10.1038_nature04119
    DOI: 10.1038/nature04119
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature04119
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/nature04119?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:438:y:2005:i:7071:d:10.1038_nature04119. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.