Fish’s DNA May Explain How Fins Turned to Feet

A New York Times article written by Nicholas Wade discusses the genome decoding of a fleshy lobed finned fish called coelacanth.    This fish was believed to be extinct, but was again located millions of years later in South Africa.  The gnome was sequenced and it appears that it is not the fish closest relative to the first tetra-pods to walk on land.  It is believed that a fish called the lungfish is the closer of the two to the tetra-pods, but the gnome cannot yet be sequences.  This means that the coelacanth may be able to give us more information because its 2.8 billion units of DNA have been decoded.