Fossil of most primitive four-legged creature discovered

by mdr on Jun. 27th, 2008
in Life Science and Diversity of Organisms

comments

The discovery of a new fossil of an ancient four-legged creature with both amphibian and fish traits has been reported in the scientific journal Nature.

Named Ventastega curonica, the extinct animal’s 365 million year old remains were discovered in Latvia in the near-shore marine sediments of the Ketleri Formation. It lived during the Late Devonian about 100 million years before dinosaurs. Only partial remains of Ventastega were recovered, including its skull, shoulder, and pelvis, but by studying the bones' structures scientists were able to determine that the creature had limbs rather than fins.

Fossils of other transition creatures have been found with similar degrees of advancement between fish and tetrapods (animals with four limbs), but those appear to be more fish than tetrapod, while Vestastega appears to be more tetrapod than fish.