Neil Shubin Your Inner Fish Summary

Part II Inner Fish Interactive Video Summaries

Episode 1 – Your Inner Fish

Neil Shubin, fish paleontologist, believes the history of humans, and all other living creatures, begins with fish. Neil Shubin says the roadmaps to our own bodies can be seen in all other creatures, in particular, fish because of the shared ancestry. Even though humans don’t appear to look like fish, with a deeper look, Neil Shubin describes the similarities. He describes the underlying theme found in bones and skeletons in all creatures: one bone, two bones, a lot of bones, and then the digits. Shubin researches these connections by looking for fossils in Pennsylvania based on particular times in history. Both fish and human embryos have a head, a body, a tail,

In Nova Scotia, Shubin finds a reptile, tritheledont, with an upper jaw containing a canine tooth and smaller teeth behind it making it part reptile part mammal. In early development of humans, we have a yolk sack, which is a remnant from the time when our ancestors laid eggs. Reptiles must evolve to have their eggs not dried out since they are not laid in water; they have fluid filled sacks, with an amnion, also found in human embryos. Ancestors eventually stop relying on yolk to feed their embryos. Our ancestors, reptiles, had to fight for food and territory when moving into land fully (eggs no longer laid in water like amphibians). Paleontologists find “mammal-life reptiles.” Teeth of fossils can tell so much about an animal of the past: what it ate, how they ate, who was prey, who was predator, and more. The elongation of the canine found in these reptile fossils is still found in mammals. Holes found in reptile fossils suggest whiskers, which can be found on cats and dogs, but no evidence of hair anywhere else, making it a split between reptiles and mammals. Many common features are found in the skin of reptiles and mammals too, for example the bearded dragon. Mammals inherit the genes, or the manufacturing process to build tissues, such as the skin. Lastly, reptiles give mammals a wide range

The coccyx, found in humans, is a remnant of tail left over from our monkey ancestors. Just looking at a monkey, you can see the relation to humans: their nails and the way they grasp objects with their hands. Monkeys are primates just like humans are. We did no evolve from the modern monkey, but we have a common ancestor with monkeys existing today. Before 23 million years ago, monkeys were colorblind. Three opsins are required to see full range of light. If only two are present, this animal would be colorblind. Unlike monkeys, humans stand up on two feet. Neil Shubin looks at bones of an ancient monkey that walked on two legs (it is bipedal). This monkey, Lucy, is bipedal, yet primitive and not human. Lucy tells us when our ancestors began walking on two legs, around 4.4 million years ago. The fossil Ardipithecus tells us why our ancestors began walking on two legs. Ardi’s feet she walked on had a big toe that could grasp. Shubin believes Ardi disproves the past theory that mammals began walking on two feet with climate change because she walked on two feet before climate change millions of years ago. With the study of fossils, scientists find the human back goes wrong a lot. Bad backs of humans are connected to our monkey ancestors. The architecture of the brains of fish and humans are found to be very parallel structures, too. Both human and shark