Culture: Did the roots of walking come from “hopping” fish?
- Birds gotta fly, fish gotta … walk? Scientists have long known that the early ancestors of almost every four-limbed creature — from mammals to reptiles to birds, and so on — are fish that learned to breathe on land. But now scientists say that the African lungfish, using its “eel-like body and a pair of flimsy hind fins,” can walk/propel itself underwater, suggesting that walking isn’t merely an above-ground phenomenon. “This shows us — pardon the pun — the steps that are involved in the origin of walking,” said the University of Chicago’s pun-friendly researcher, Neil Shubin. Not that their walking abilities would be obvious to researchers based on appearances alone. “Their fins seem like the furthest thing from walking appendages possible,” Shubin noted. source
