The first tetrapods that moved onto land did not grow like today's amphibians. No larval stage, no metamorphosis, just little babies that grew directly into adults.
As shown by fossils from Illinois!
Steve Brusatte
New in @science.org ...since our first discoveries of early tetrapods, they have been thought of as "amphibians" characterized by aquatic larvae. But is this true? For the first time, we report exceptional fossils of stem tetrapod babies that upend this paradigm. 1/n
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
www.science.org
Modern amphibians are characterized by an aquatic larval stage that ends abruptly with a period of widespread tissue remodeling (metamorphosis) upon transition to terrestrial adulthood. A transient la...
