Scientists researching how our arms and legs evolved from fins have managed to grow legs on Zebra danios!
While fossils show that limbs evolved from fins, the group of Spanish researchers have managed to show in a laboratory how it may have happened.
A team of scientists led by Dr. José Luis Gómez-Skarmeta at the CSIC-Universidad Pablo de Olavide-Junta de Andalucía, in Seville, injected danio embryos with a mouse gene that controls the development of autopods — a precursor to hands and feet.
All the embryos injected with the gene developed leg-like limbs instead of fins within just 24 hours. Unfortunately, the experiment was also fatal to the fish concerned, and while they continued growing for four more days, they later died.
Their findings are published in Developmental Cell.
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