Ch. 2: Getting a Grip

After reading through the chapter, I was amazed to discover how such extraordinary evolutions, within the bone structures of living things, can appear over a period of time. Shubin's statement, "...we see that Tiktaalik was specialized for a rather extraordinary function: it was capable of doing push-ups" (39), reveals a major step that marked the transtition towards fish beginning to adapt to land. It is quite eerie to me how fossils prove that fishes and mammals are of similar origin. Although this may be evident through discoveries of fossils, I still find it quite difficult to believe. I look forward to reading what Neil Shubin has for me in chapter three.