It has a skull typical of land animals that walk on all fours. However, its proportions are reminiscent of a fish. It is about Ventastega Curonica , a prehistoric animal that lived more than 300 million years ago and that has just been classified as an important link in the passage of life from the seas to the land , as published today in the journal Nature .
After studying a very well preserved fossil of Ventastega found in Latvia , a team from the University of Uppsala (Sweden) has concluded that the species had already undergone changes in the shape of the head with respect to its ancestors, with the eyes and a bigger snout and a skull that was beginning to shrink. In addition, they ensure that the animal could be evolutionarily located between the lobe- finned fish Tiktaalik and the primitive tetrapods Acanthostega and Ichtyostega.
According to paleontological evidence, the transition from aquatic to terrestrial vertebrate animals occurred in the Devonian period , 380 to 360 million years ago.
Nature (www.nature.com)
