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Ancient life · Onto the land

Tiktaalik roseae

A fish on the way to becoming a four-legged animal.

Specimens from about 1.2 to 2.7 m (4 to 9 feet). Beside a person 1.75 m tall; ticks every metre.Body shape drawn for this site

When
About 375 million years ago
Where
Ellesmere Island, Arctic Canada
Size
Specimens from about 1.2 to 2.7 m (4 to 9 feet)
A life-size model of Tiktaalik, a flat-headed fish with sturdy fins, in a museum.
A model of Tiktaalik at the Harvard Museum of Natural History.Tiktaalik model at the Harvard Museum of Natural History by Ryan Schwark, CC0 1.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Resized.

Tiktaalik has a skull, a neck, ribs and parts of the limbs like those of four-legged animals, and also fish features: fins, scales and a primitive jaw. It sits right at the step between fish and the first animals that walked on land, about 375 million years ago.

Its fossils were found on Ellesmere Island in Arctic Canada. The specimens range from about 1.2 to 2.7 metres long.

Tiktaalik roseae640 Manow
Tiktaalik roseae: about 375 million years ago. That is 8% of the way back to the Earth’s birth.Periods from the ICS chart

Read more in Onto the land.

Also in onto the land

  • Cooksonia One of the first plants with pipes for water
  • Arthropleura A giant millipede, the largest arthropod known

Sources