Aquamarine Fukushima <\/p>\n
An African coelacanth, photographed using a Remotely Operated Vehicle off the coast of Tanga, Tanzania. <\/p>\n
By John Roach, Contributing Writer, NBC News <\/p>\n
The genome of the coelacanth, an ancient-looking lobed-finned fish, has been sequenced and is already providing insight to the evolutionary changes that allowed the first four-limbed animals, called tetrapods, to crawl out of the water and on to land. <\/p>\n
The sequence and preliminary analysis, reported Thursday in the journal Natureby a team spanning 40 research institutions and 12 countries,is a \"massive piece of work,\" Xiaobo Xu, a paleontologist at Kean University who was not involved in the effort, told NBC News in an email. <\/p>\n
\"The paper really provides rare and valuable genomic data for offering heavy-weight opinions on issues bearing on the fish (to) tetrapod transition,\" he said. <\/p>\n
It also settles a debate that has long raged amongst evolutionary biologists: what fish is the closest relative of tetrapods: the coelacanth or the equally odd-looking lobed-finned lungfish. The winner, according to analysis of the newly-published genome, is the lungfish. <\/p>\n
\"We think we have definitively shown it now,\" Jessica Alfldi, a research scientist at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and co-first author of the paper, told NBC News. \"They are very close, which is why it took so much data to figure it out.\" <\/p>\n
Slow evolving genes Scientists thought coelacanths went extinct about 70 million years ago, during the Late Cretaceous period. That changed when a fish trawler off the South African coast delivered a fresh-caught coelacanth to a local natural history museum in 1938, proving that the fish are alive and well. <\/p>\n
The coelacanths' odd, ancient-looking looks raised eyebrows and earned it the nickname \"living fossil\" much to the chagrin of evolutionary biologists, noted Alfldi. (\"It makes people think there was no evolution,\" she explained.) <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Read more: Aquamarine Fukushima An African coelacanth, photographed using a Remotely Operated Vehicle off the coast of Tanga, Tanzania. By John Roach, Contributing Writer, NBC News The genome of the coelacanth, an ancient-looking lobed-finned fish, has been sequenced and is already providing insight to the evolutionary changes that allowed the first four-limbed animals, called tetrapods, to crawl out of the water and on to land. The sequence and preliminary analysis, reported Thursday in the journal Natureby a team spanning 40 research institutions and 12 countries,is a \"massive piece of work,\" Xiaobo Xu, a paleontologist at Kean University who was not involved in the effort, told NBC News in an email Continue reading
\nGenome of ancient-looking fish gives clues to first limbed landlubbers<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"