GeologyRocks

That's very interesting. Does it push back the date when life was first thought to colonise the land by a few million years? Missing link's a very unfortunate phrase indeed - it conjures up images of Darwin and co.

Gus

I recently met the discoverer of the "fish" fossil (Dr. Ted Daschler) and he gave me and some of my collegues a "behind-the-scenes" tour of the Academy of Natural Sciences (PHL), including a close-up of the famed "fish".  It was very cool and I was surprised how exquisite the details of the fossil were!  He pointed out where there were structures on the fossil that were fish-like and others that were not fish-like.  I especially liked the bony-part of the lob-fin were there was a humurous, radius, ulna, and other bones that are present in our arms (and all other land-creatures).

This looks to me like some kind of ancient lung fish. When he stated "before eventually evolving into modern animals including mankind." that killed it for me.

Nature¹,², lived some 375 million years ago. Palaeontologists are calling the specimen from the Devonian a true 'missing link', as it helps to fill in a gap in our understanding of how fish developed legs for land mobility, before eventually evolving into modern animals including mankind.

The specimens I saw had 6 or so, 3/4-inch long teeth that were preserved.  Teeth for grasping and killing, not much for chewing.  Also, it had rib structures so it could support the internal organs for the "on-land" time.  What I found fascinating was the preserved bones in the lob-fin that had a humerus, ulna, radius, and phalanges (same bone structure in land creatures, including us).  Very cool.  As I understand, the lung fish does not have the complex bone structure, but rather "walks" on a single "bone" in its' fin.

Although the "missing link" reference maybe unfortunate, the press (and lay persons) think in those kind of terms.  It is unfortunate because evangelical Christians also like to tout that the Evolutionary Theory is wrong because it predicts transitional forms from one "kind" to another "kind", and where are these missing links.  When a form like this is found, this creates 2 "missing links" where only 1 existed before.  I guess these type of folks don't watch movies.

Technically true though...but yes, a little strange saying it. I guess he was just trying to make it relevant to layfolk.