Fingers are pretty nifty. They let you to grab a latte, type on a keyboard, even pull up your pants. But did you ever wonder: where do fingers come from? In the 1990s, scientists gave this problem a lot of thought. And they concluded that fingers were pretty much invented by the first tetrapods: that is, critters with four limbs. One reason they thought that is because a fossilized skeleton of an ancient fish didn’t appear to have any fingers. Or at least any distinct digits in its pectoral fin. But tetrapods, which evolved from fish, did. Now scientists writing in the September 21st online issue of Nature say that that thinking was…a little fishy. Because they’ve unearthed evidence that suggests that that ancient fish did indeed have fingers in its fins. The researchers did a CT scan on a specimen about 380 million years old. And they found that the fish’s right fin, which was unusually well-preserved, does appear to have digitlike bones. The reason other researchers previously missed them, they think, is because in their samples the fingers were hidden behind marks left by the fish’s scales. So fish, too, seem to have incipient fingers. A finding we give two thumbs up.
我们的手指来自……鱼 手指非常灵巧，他们帮你拿咖啡，打字，或是拉裤子。但是你有没有想过：手指是怎么进化来的？上世纪90年代，科学家深入思考了这一问题。他们得出结论：手指基本上是第一个四足动物（有四肢的动物）的发明。原因之一就是古代鱼类的化石骨骼看似没有手指——至少在胸鳍上没有明显的趾结构。但是从鱼类进化来的四足动物却有这种结构。 但如今，科学家在9月21日的《自然》杂志在线版上撰文指出，以前的想法并不正确。这些科学家发掘出的化石证明，古代鱼类的鳍上的确长有“手指”。他们对3亿8千万年的一个标本进行了 CT扫描，发现在保存非常完整的鱼右鳍上，确实有趾形的鱼骨。这些科学家认为，以前的科学家之所以没有发现这种鱼骨，是因为他们的标本上的“手指”被鱼鳞留下的痕迹掩盖了。所以，看起来鱼儿身上也有手指的雏形。让我们为这一发现竖起两跟大拇指。