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Question

Question: What kind of fish did humans evolve from?...

What kind of fish did humans evolve from?

Explanation

Solution

One of the most momentous incidents in the history of time was when the fish developed into a tetrapod, clambering out of the water, and ultimately dominating land. The word tetrapod describes the four-limbed vertebrates, involving humans. To achieve this change, numerous anatomical changes were required. One of the most crucial was the evolution of hands and feet.

Complete answer:
Elpistostegids are a group that exhibited characteristics of both lobe-finned fish and initial tetrapods. They were expected to be involved in connecting the gap between prehistoric fish and animals efficient of living on land.
To recognize how fish fins developed into limbs (arms and legs with digits) by evolution, the fossils of vanished lobe-finned fishes and early tetrapods were studied. Lobe-fins consist of bony fishes (Osteichthyes) with robust fins, like lungfish and coelacanths.
Elpistostegalians inhabited during the middle and upper Devonian times somewhere between 393–359 million years ago. Finding of a full 1.57 meter (5-foot) Elpistostege discovered from Miguasha National Park in Quebec, Canada was the first case of a full skeleton of any elpistostegalian fish fossil.
From an evolutionary standpoint, strips of digit bones in prehistoric fish fins would have offered elasticity for the fin to more efficiently carry weight. This could have been helpful when Elpistostege was either slogging along in the sandbanks or trying to go out of water onto land. Ultimately, the enhanced use of such fins would have contributed to the loss of fin-rays and the arrival of digits in rows, developing a bigger surface area for the limb to grasp the land surface.

Note:
The researchers of the University of Quebec, discovered the first entire specimen of Elpistostege watsoni. This fish, similar to tetrapods, existed more than 380 million years ago, and fitted into a group known as elpistostegids. Research on this specimen, available today in Nature indicates human hands are likely developed from the fins of this fish, which is referred to by its genus name, Elpistostege.