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Department of Biological Sciences

Australian Lungfish Development


This research involves the evolution of fins (for swimming in water) to limbs (for walking on land). Looking at the paired fins of those fossil fish believed to be ancestral to amphibians, homologues of the proximal elements of limbs (humerus, ulna, radius: femur, tibia, fibula) can be found, but no homologues can be found for the hands and feet, in particular the fingers and toes. These distal features of limbs are hypothesised to have arisen de novo in the first amphibians. However, lungfish fins do have numerous radial elements, some of which could be homologised with the elements of the hands and feet straightened out into a paddle instead of curved into a hand. We are researching the expression of the developmental genes that direct the formation of hands and feet, fingers and toes, in the formation of lungfish fins.


If you wish to look at images of the development of lungfish CLICK HERE