ANIMAL HISTORY

By the Devonian period two major animal groups dominated the land: the tetrapods (4-legged terrestrial vertebrates) and the arthropods, including arachnids and wingless insects. The first tetrapods were amphibians, such as Ichthyostega, and were closely related to a group of fish known as lobe-finned fish e.g. Eusthenopteron . Once thought to be extinct, the coelacanth is a living representative of this group.
Eusthenopteron had a number of exaptations that pre-adapted it to life on land: it had limbs (with digits) that allowed it to move around on the bottom of pools, lungs - which meant it could gulp air at the surface, and the beginnings of a neck. This last is important as a terrestrial predator cannot rely on water current to bring food into its mouth, but must move its head to catch prey. And the bones in Eusthenopteron's fins are almost identical to those in the limbs of the earliest amphibians, an example of homology.
Ichthyostega's skull was almost identical to that of the lobe-finned fish Eusthenopteron, a definite neck separated its body from its head, and it retained a deep tail with fins. While Ichthyostega had four strong limbs, the form of its hind legs suggests that it did not spend all its time on land.
All modern tetrapods have a maximum of 5 digits on each limb, and are thus said to have a pentadactyl limb. For a long time scientists believed that pentadactyly was the ancestral state for tetrapods. However, careful examination of the fossils of early amphibians such as Ichthyostega and Acanthostega has revealed the presence of up to 8 toes on each foot!
In addition, these early amphibians were large-bodied animals with strong bodies and prominent ribs - quite different in appearance from modern representatives such as frogs and axolotls.