a different take on the early #reptiles: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1083321
sounds more important from this angle
Might I interest you in some early #tetrapods ? I find them oddly endearing. The pictures are from the Natural History Museum in London, one of my favorite museums.
(Though I guess #tiktaalik is more if a #fish than an early tetrapod)
300 million-year-old tail print shows that scales evolved earlier than expected https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/06/scales-helped-reptiles-conquer-the-land-when-did-they-first-evolve/
A diadectid skin impression and its implications for the evolutionary origin of epidermal scales https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsbl.2024.0041
"the epidermal scales in #diadectids and other terrestrial #tetrapods prevented the evaporation of water from their bodies, which may have helped them survive the #desert climate that prevailed on #Pangea during the #Permian"
380-Million-Year-Old #Fossils of Air-Breathing Tetrapod #Fish Found in Australia https://www.sci.news/paleontology/harajicadectes-zhumini-12661.html
A new stem-tetrapod fish from the Middle–Late Devonian of central Australia https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02724634.2023.2285000
"#Tetrapodomorpha comprises the limbed tetrapods and their closest fish relatives.. The group diversified greatly in both marine and freshwater habitats during the Middle-to-Late #Devonian while giving rise to several distinct lineages, including the earliest limbed #tetrapods."
@Himmapaan , Marc Vincent, and Niels Hazborg released a new episode of the wonderful podcast Love in the Time of Chasmosaurs:
https://chasmosaurs.com/2023/12/30/podcast-show-notes-episode-30-tetzoocon-on-ice/
it is all about tetzoocon, the convention run by @john and @TetZoo
Who were the first proponents of the water-to-land transition of vertebrates? Did the idea that tetrapods originate from fish precede the discovery of transition fossils? Were the discussions on land-to-water (e.g. ichthyosaurs origin) and water-to-land transitions contemporary?
I’m trying to place some late 18th/early 19th century science writing into context, but have no background in the history of science.
Ancient superpredator that lived 328 million years ago was 'the T. rex of its time'
https://www.livescience.com/tetrapod-predator-growth
#Fossil bone #histology reveals ancient origins for rapid juvenile growth in tetrapods https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-022-04079-0
Early #tetrapods like #whatcheeriads were related to modern #reptiles, #amphibians and #mammals but were in a different evolutionary lineage than the ancestor of those three groups. To find rapid growth in as old an animal as #Whatcheeria was really unexpected.
Cracking open a fossil bone reveals rapid juvenile growth in early tetrapods
https://phys.org/news/2022-11-fossil-bone-reveals-rapid-juvenile.html
It was long thought that these early animals (ancestors of #amphibians, #reptiles, #birds, and #mammals) grew very slowly throughout their lifetime, gradually getting bigger and bigger, similar to a modern #salamander... #Whatcheeria's elevated growth rates as a juvenile shows us that maybe slow and steady growth is not actually the ancestral condition for all #tetrapods.
My #mastodon #introduction :
I'm Lachlan. I'm a PhD candidate at the University of New South Wales and the Australian Museum (where I am also a technical officer in #palaeontology ). I study #temnospondyls , fossil #crocs and other #tetrapods.
I am a former primary school #teacher and am a proud dad to 4 boys.
Here's a photo of #Eryops that I took at the #ROM #Toronto at #SVP 2 weeks ago.
