Scientists have discovered a 405-million-year-old fossilized fish that shares characteristics of modern bony fishes and land vertebrates.
Hundreds of millions of years ago, bony sea creatures of the group Osteichtheyes hit an evolutionary fork in the road. Some animals took the path towards Actinopterygii, a group of modern, ray-finned fish.
The rest evolved into Sacropterygii, the group that includes the ancestors of land vertebrates — coelacanths, lungfishes and tetrapods.
