World’s first land animals stretched their legs in G’town

Prehistoric tetrapods provide clues to the first signs of land-based life on Planet Earth

IT WAS an evolutionary milestone that happened deep in our history and its story could soon be revealed in rock recovered from near Grahamstown.

Scientists call the event terrestrialisation, that evolutionary moment when animals first left the water and headed on to land. It has always been a mystery as to what drove these animals to venture ashore, but the discovery of two 360-million-year-old tetrapod species could change that.

At the Origins Centre at Wits University yesterday, Minister of Science and Technology Mmamoloko Kubayi-ngubane revealed to the world Tutusius umlambo and Umzantsia amazana.

When alive these two animals would have had crocodile-like heads, short legs and broad, flat tails. They would have lived in shallow water, breathed air and probably fed on fish and small invertebrates.

But what is special about these two animals, according to Dr Robert Gess of the Albany Museum in Grahamstown, who discovered them, is that they are directly related to us and were probably the first animals to move from water to land.

Similar tetrapod fossils have been found around the world, but what makes the two South African species unique is where they were found.

All the other tetrapod species were found in rocks deposited between 30 degrees north and south of the equator. This was a tropical zone 360 million years ago, and the conventional belief was that this was where tetrapods first stepped on to land. The mystery is why.

“It might have been a carrot and stick thing. Here was a moist, shady forest with a huge food source and no predators,” Gess says.

He hopes that more might be revealed from where he found the two new species – in shale rock from a road cutting just outside Grahamstown.

In this shale, Gess hopes to find more evidence of tetrapods, perhaps imprints of the animals.

“There are a lot of questions and one of them is what did their feet look like.”

The minister pointed out that this latest discovery highlighted South Africa’s role in science.

PICTURE: SHAUN SMILLIE Dr Robert Gess of the Albany Museum in Grahamstown holds the fossil remains of Tutusius umlambo, a 360-million-yearold tetrapod that he discovered outside of the city. The discovery adds to our understanding of when animals first left water and stepped...

About 360 million years ago Tutusius umlambo and Umzantsia amazana lived in shallow water and probably ventured on to land to hunt and evade predators.

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