Palaeogeography: Devonian tetrapod from western Europe.
Several discoveries of Late Devonian tetrapods (limbed vertebrates) have been made during the past two decades, but each has been confined to one locality. Here we describe a tetrapod jaw of about 365 million years (Myr) old from the Famennian of Belgium, which is the first from western continental Europe. The jaw closely resembles that of Ichthyostega, a Famennian tetrapod hitherto known only from Greenland. The environment of this fossil provides information about the conditions that prevailed just before the virtual disappearance of tetrapods from the fossil record for 20 Myr.
Clément
Gaël
G
UMR 5143, CNRS, Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, 75005 Paris, France.
Ahlberg
Per E
PE
Blieck
Alain
A
Blom
Henning
H
Clack
Jennifer A
JA
Poty
Edouard
E
Thorez
Jacques
J
Janvier
Philippe
P
D000818:Animals; D001530:Belgium; D005580:Fossils; D005843:Geography; D006116:Greenland; D007568:Jaw / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D013997:Time Factors; D014714:Vertebrates / Q000033:anatomy & histology*