- NEWS AND VIEWS
As fish evolved into four-limbed creatures, their skull separated from their shoulders to form a neck. Now we learn that this early neck was surprisingly rigid.
By
-
Tatsuya Hirasawa
-
Tatsuya Hirasawa is in the Department of Earth and Planetary Science, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan.
-
In the Ballad of a Thin Man, Bob Dylan sang about a bewildered individual:
doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-026-03061-8
References
Korneisel, D. E. et al. Nature https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-11158-3 (2026).
Shubin, N. H., Daeschler, E. B. & Jenkins, F. A. Nature 440, 764–771 (2006).
Hirasawa, T., Fujimoto, S. & Kuratani, S. Dev. Growth Differ. 58, 143–153 (2016).
Trinajstic, K. et al. Science 341, 160–164 (2013).
Long, J. A. et al. Nature 641, 1193–1200 (2025).
Williams, R. E. et al. Astron. J. 112, 1335–1389 (1996).
Pierce, S. E., Clack, J. A. & Hutchinson, J. R. Nature 486, 523–526 (2012).
Arratia, G., Schultze, H.-P. & Casciotta, J. J. Morphol. 250, 101–172 (2001).
Hirasawa, T. et al. Nature 606, 109–112 (2022).
Zhu, Y.-a. et al. Nature 609, 954–958 (2022).
Competing Interests
The author declares no competing interests.
Related Articles
-
Read the paper: Early tetrapod neck mobility modelled using an extant analogue
-
Fossils found far from the Equator point to globetrotting tetrapods
Early tetrapods had an eye on the land
