John Long/The Conversation The emergence of four-legged animals known as tetrapods was a key step in the evolution of many species today – including humans. Our new discovery, published today in Nature, details ancient fossil footprints found in Australia that upend the early evolution timeline of all tetrapods. It also suggests major parts of the story could have played out in the southern supercontinent of Gondwana. This fossil trackway whispers that we have been looking for the origin of modern tetrapods in the wrong time, and perhaps the wrong place. The first feet on land Tetrapods originated a long time ago in the Devonian period, when strange lobe-finned fishes began to haul themselves out of the water, probably around 390
