Early Fishes Information
"The rise of fishes from the waters of the archaic seas
and rivers onto land signifies one of the greatest events in
the evolution of life on Earth. If not for the evolution of four-legged
land animals from fishes, we humans, belonging to a small group
of warm-blooded land animals called 'mammals', would never have
had an opportunity to evolve. For we are merely highly advanced
fishes. Yet representation of this event is often given short
treatment in the story of the evolution backboned animals (vertebrates),
as such accounts tend to focus on the mainstream evolution of
land animals - from amphibians to reptiles, birds and mammals,
and ultimately to us."
The Rise of Fishes, 500 million years of evolution, by John
A. Long, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995. Preface, Pg. 8.
If you would like to learn more about the evolution of fishes,
we recommend Long's excellent book. It's loaded with information,
well written and easy to understand.
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