Young Students Recognize a Transitional Fossil

Topic

Resource Type

Level

Middle/Junior High High School — General High School — AP/IB

Duration

00:04:44

Saved By

1 Users

Description

This video shows the reactions of first-grade students to a replica of a Tiktaalik fossil.

Paleontologist Neil Shubin brought the fossil to his daughter’s first-grade class to see what the students would make of it. The students immediately recognized that Tiktaalik, an organism that existed about 375 million years ago, has characteristics of both a fish and a four-legged land animal (tetrapod).

This short video, inspired by Neil Shubin’s book Your Inner Fish, illustrates the power of fossil evidence for learning about evolution.

Key Terms

fish, fishapod, limb, paleontology, scales, skeleton, skull, tetrapod

Primary Literature

Daeschler, Edward B., Neil H. Shubin, and Farish A. Jenkins Jr. “A Devonian tetrapod-like fish and the evolution of the tetrapod body plan.” Nature 440, 7085 (2006): 757–763. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature04639.