Study says evolution theory all wet
A UO scientist says fish probably made the transition to land in a wooded, humid environment, not a desert
http://www.registerguard.com/web/updates/27378888-55/fish-retallack-desert-pond-popular.html.csp
I almost didn’t blog on this because it seems rather ‘Duh!’ to me, but figured, what the heck, perhaps my reader might be interested if he missed the article. While the article mentions that there were no _vertebrate_ predators to interfere with the movement of the vertebrate transition from fish to amphibian, as I recall things insects have been existing on land for millions of years (probably 10’s of millions of years) before the first proto-amphibian dragged its sorry carcass out of the water. I don’t know about you, but I would be very unhappy today meeting a hungry dragon fly that has a 3 ft wing span and I can run and dodge way better than any fish. I imagine that without the protection of the roots, branches, etc. mentioned in the article those fish attempting to explore new environmental niches probably would have just made the predatory insects very happy to have high protein, easy to digest meals. So, in addition to the arguments outlined in the article supporting the not-out-of-the-desert theory, clearly protection from predatory insects needs to be taken into account, further bolstering the author’s argument in spite of himself.
