Episode 77 - Fins to Feet: The Fish-Tetrapod Transition

The Common Descent Podcast

Common Descent

Science, Natural Sciences, Education, Earth Sciences, Science:natural Sciences

4.8 • 764 Ratings

🗓️ 29 December 2019

⏱️ 98 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Happy New Year! As we transition into a new decade, this episode is about one of the most important and incredible transitions in the evolutionary history of life. In the Late Devonian, one particular group of bony fish spent many millions of years experimenting with new forms of fins, skulls, and lifestyles, ultimately giving rise to the first land-dwelling vertebrates and setting the stage for 300 million years of continental dominance. In the news: the earliest penguins, ancient whale swimming, dinosaur lice, and really old brains. Time markers: Intro & Announcements: 00:00:00News: 00:04:00 Main discussion, Part 1: 00:30:30 Main discussion, Part 2: 00:59:00 Check out our blog for bonus info and pictures:http://commondescentpodcast.wordpress.com/ The Common Descent Store is open! Get merch! http://zazzle.com/common_descent Follow and Support us on: Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/commondescentpodcast Twitter: https://twitter.com/CommonDescentPCFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/commondescentpodcast/PodBean: https://commondescentpodcast.podbean.com/ iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-common-descent-podcast/id1207586509?mt=2YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCePRXHEnZmTGum2r1l2mduw The Intro and Outro music is “On the Origin of Species” by Protodome. More music like this at http://ocremix.org. Musical Interludes are "Professor Umlaut" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to the Common Descent Podcast.
0:19.0	Happy New Year, Will.
0:20.5	Happy New Year, David. And hello, listeners, a Happy New Year, Will.
0:22.0	Happy New Year, David.
0:25.4	And hello, listeners. A happy new year to you, too.
0:26.2	Yes.
0:30.3	Welcome to episode 77 of the Common Descent Podcast.
0:39.3	We are wrapping up 2019 with a discussion of the transition from fish to tetrapods.
0:42.7	A good topic for our last main episode of the year.
0:47.7	Arguably the most important evolutionary innovation in the history of vertebrates,
0:49.5	says the tetrapod.
0:52.7	I mean, I can't think of anything that could have been more important.
0:57.6	So tetrapods are all of the vertebrates that aren't fish.
0:58.2	Yes.
1:09.0	All the vertebrates that are ancestrally land dwellers, starting with early amphibians, giving rise to reptiles and mammals, all of our favorite things, including ourselves. The evolutionary transition thus involves the transition over from animals,
1:16.9	vertebrate animals that are adapted to living in the water,
1:20.5	to animals that are adapted to living on land.
1:22.9	Yes.
1:23.3	We've talked about the opposite transition with whales in episode 41, where they went from land to water.
1:29.5	This time we're talking about the original vertebrate to land, fish to land transition.
1:35.0	So we'll talk about what the differences are, what makes a tetrapod, and we'll mention a bunch of the famous examples that tell us a bit of what we know about this transition.
1:46.4	This episode topic was requested a bunch of times.
	...

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