Fossil EvidenceIn 2004, a field crew digging in the Canadian Arctic unearthed the fossil remains of a half-fish, half-amphibian that would all but confirm paleontologists' theories about how land-dwelling tetrapods (four-limbed animals, including us) evolved from their fish ancestors. The animal was a so-called lobe-finned fish that lived about 375 million years ago. Named Tiktaalik rosae by its discoverers, it is a classic example of a transitional form, one that bridges the evolutionary gap between two quite different types of animal. In this slide show, see this and four other well-known fossil transitions, which clearly indicate Darwinian evolution in action.—Rima Chaddha
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