‘Weird’ walking fish could shed light on how humans evolved to stand upright

The best of Voices delivered to your inbox every week - from controversial columns to expert analysis Sign up for our free weekly Voices newsletter for expert opinion and columns Sign up to our free weekly Voices newsletter Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} A “weird” species of “walking” fish is helping shed light on how humans evolved to stand upright millions of years ago, according to scientists. This is a fish that grew legs using the same genes that contribute to the development of our limbs and then repurposed these legs to find prey using the same genes our tongues use to taste food - pretty wild Prof Nicholas Bellono “Although the details of how this happened in fish and humans are likely very different, we hope to learn general principles about how old genes and old structures can be repurposed in nature in order to build new traits in wild species.” Researchers from Harvard and Stanford universities decided to study what they describe as “weird creatures” after learning that sea robins are often followed by other fish because of their unique ability to find hidden prey. We were delighted to see that the gene that makes some parts of the fins develop in a new way in sea robins is also a gene that controls some bones in humans Prof David Kingsley Nicholas Bellono, an associate professor at Harvard, said: “This is a fish that grew legs using the same genes that contribute to the development of our limbs and then repurposed these legs to find prey using the same genes our tongues use to taste food – pretty wild.” But they also found that other another species, known as Prionotus evolans, did not have papillae, and use their legs for movement rather than hunting. “We were surprised to see how much sea robins differ from each other in sensory structures found on the legs.” Prof Kingsley said that as part of the next steps, the team is looking to explore how sea robins evolved to have these sensory abilities in their legs.