Footprints could push back tetrapod origins

Newly discovered trackways much older than previous evidence for sea-to-land transition

Fossilized footprints found in an abandoned quarry in Poland hint that four-limbed creatures called tetrapods evolved much earlier and in a radically different environment than previously thought.

OUT FOR A STROLL Trackways preserved in 395-million-year-old rocks push back evidence for tetrapods by at least 18 million years, researchers say.