For Immediate Release The Field Museum, Greg Borzo (312) 665-7106 gborzo@fieldmuseum.org FROM FINS TO FEET: A 375-million-year-old “missing link” goes on display at The Field Museum See fossil specimens of the recently discovered “missing link” between fish and land animals on display for the first time anywhere WHAT: Fossils of the newly discovered Tiktaalik roseae, (tik-TAH-lik ro-SAY-a), a 375-million-year-old fish with primitive legs, will be put on display at The Field Museum starting Wednesday, May 3, 2006. Neil Shubin, the scientist who found the fossils, will be on hand that day to describe the discovery. On display will be the skull and lower jaw of an original fossil; a cast of an entire skeleton; a cast of the limb Tiktaalik used for walking; and a life-sized model of the fish. With its finely preserved fins and scales, Tiktaalik is clearly a fish. But upon closer examination, it has some unexpected—and very un-fish-like—features. Most striking are its fins, which look like limbs. Tiktaalik also has large ribs and a neck, features not found in fishes but in the earliest known tetrapods (vertebrates with four paired limbs and digits). In addition, it has a head shaped more like an early tetrapod’s head than that of a fish. Scientists have long known that fishes are the ancestors of the first tetrapods, and now Tiktaalik provides clear evidence of this. The display will eventually be incorporated into The Field Museum’s new Evolving Planet exhibition, which traces the history of life on earth over four billion years. Evolving Planet is an “evolving” exhibition that will continue to incorporate new scientific evidence as it is discovered. Since Evolving Planet opened on March 10, 2006, 172,749 museum visitors have already seen this popular exhibition. WHO: Shubin, a Field Museum Research Associate and a Professor of Organismal Biology and Anatomy at the University of Chicago, will discuss the importance of this find. WHEN: On display from Wednesday, May 3, until August 20, 2006. WHERE: The Field Museum, 1400 S. Lake Shore Dr., near the Evolving Planet exhibiton on the Upper Level. The display is free with museum admission. Images of the display and fossils, as well as the site in Canada 600 miles from the North Pole where they were found, are available to the media upon request. <<Back to the Press Room