The 365-million-year old bones, uncovered recently in Canada’s arctic, are of a hefty creature caught “in the act of adapting toward a life on land,” its discoverers report in Nature. Head like a crocodile or maybe a toothy salamander, tail like a fish, and fins stiffened by bones that foreshadow terrestrial limbs. Of course, maybe the ID faith-believers will say it’s just a wacked-out lungfish, one of the creator’s little amusements. Many lovely bits in the reporting, including Peter Spotts in Boston (Christian Science Monitor) with a novel local angle: “The sharp-toothed meat-eater’s head gives it a crocodile-like profile – suggesting a fish even Julia Child would have found tough to turn into chowder.”
AP: Malcolm Ritter
SF Chronicle: David Perlman
NYTimes: John Noble Wilford
Time Magazine: Michael Lemonick
Christian Science Monitor: Peter N. Spotts
Miami Herald-Knight Ridder Robert S. Boyd
Cincinatti Enquirer has an editorial
Washington Post Guy Gugliotta
Reporters had Lots of Help: PRESS RELEASES from NSF
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