Montreal researchers raised a fish called a Polypterus, which can breathe air, walk on land using their front fins, and looks like ancient fishes that evolved into tetrapods – four-limbed vertebrates.

The “terrestrialized” fish – meaning they were raised out of water – showed significant anatomical and behavioural changes.

“Anatomically, their pectoral skeleton changed to become more elongate with stronger attachments across their chest, possibly to increase support during walking, and a reduced contact with the skull to potentially allow greater head/neck motion,” researcher Trina Du said.

Polypterus are strange guys to begin with. They’re freshwater fish…but they can function on land – and do – for short periods of time. What the McGill researchers wanted to do was to force them to exist solely on land – in other words, to “terrestrialize” the fish.

This they did for almost a year, to find out what kinds of behavioral or morphological changes might result in this.

The reasons for performing this experiment are pretty self-evident – it gives clues as to what actually happened in the long distant evolutionary past when this happened to our own very, very, (very) distant ancestors.

I can not possibly be the only person this story tempts to stand up and yell, “Fish out of water!”

Via Toronto Sun.