Dossier
Arjan Mann
Coverage of Arjan Mann in the Nexus archive.
- Fossils show earliest four-legged animals skipped the tadpole stage
Fossils from Illinois reveal that the earliest four-legged animals hatched as miniature adults without a tadpole stage, challenging long-held assumptions about their life cycle. A study in Science shows these early tetrapods developed directly into adult forms, bypassing the aquatic larval phase seen in modern amphibians.