As plants began to invade the land, they had several key adaptations to allow them to do so. Those adaptations include the ability to slow their metabolism in drought or extreme temperatures, vegetative propagation from fragments, growth on top of solid surfaces, a cuticle layer to help prevent excessive water loss, and vascular structures to provide support and nutrient transport (p. 71-73). Evidence of most of these traits can be found in the fossils of Cooksonia plants (p. 73-75). Cooksonia likely used vascular structures to hold itself upright and used vegetative reproduction to spread around an area through horizontal segments of stem called rhizomes (p. 73-75).
Aquatic animals had to undergo changes as well to become amphibians. As aquatic animals dwelled in shallower waters they began to develop more rigid fins to allow movement across mud, sand, and some aquatic obstacles(p. 115-116,119). They also began to transition from having only gills to having gills as well as primitive lungs (p. 119). These changes can be seen in the progression of Tiktaaliks to Acanthostegas to Ichthyostegas and onward(p. 123).
Turtles…show more content… 82-84). The author, Donald Prothero, describes how "docu-fictions" are spreading disinformation about fossils and ancient marine life (p. 108-109). Neil Shubin sought to find a definitive "fishibian" transitional fossil (p. 118). In order to find such a fossil, he journeyed to the Canadian Arctic to examine rock that no other researcher had before. For at least 4 years they searched the rock for the fossil they were looking for when in 2004 they finally found it, the Tiktaalik (p.118). Shubin's journey exemplifies the scientific process because he searched for something that other researchers had not taken into account, went to the location to get specimines and observations, and continued the process until he found what they were searching
