Evidence map›Paper›PMID 40770042›Full record

ArticleScientific reports2025

Traces of dipnoan fish document the earliest adaptations of vertebrates to move on land.

P Szrek, A Uchman, K Grygorczyk, S Salwa, P G Dworczak

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Scientific reports, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.

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0citing papers in PubMed
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1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

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Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

0 citing papers in PubMed.

No citing paper in PubMed yet.

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

5 authors.

P SzrekPolish Geological Institute-National Research Institute, 4 Rakowiecka Street, Warsaw, PL-00-975, Poland. piotr.szrek@pgi.gov.pl.
A UchmanInstitute of Geological Sciences, Jagiellonian University, Gronostajowa 3a, Kraków, 30-387, Poland.
K GrygorczykGeoPlanet Doctoral School, Polish Geological Institute-National Research Institute, 4 Rakowiecka Street, Warsaw, PL-00-975, Poland.
S SalwaPolish Geological Institute-National Research Institute, Holy Cross Mountains Branch, 21 Zgoda Street PL-25-378, Kielce, Poland.
P G DworczakPolish Geological Institute-National Research Institute, 4 Rakowiecka Street, Warsaw, PL-00-975, Poland.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

A new trackway produced by crawling fishes, which includes imprints of the trunk, snout, tail, body drag traces, and pectoral fins, was discovered in the Lower Devonian (middle-upper Emsian) marginal marine deposits in the Holy Cross Mountains, Poland. The snout imprints are represented by a low-angle variant of the already described Osculichnus tarnowskae, which has generally been interpreted as a hunting trace of fishes. However, in this case, it is considered an imprint of a fish's snout, used for anchoring in the sediment during the locomotion of at least partially emerged fish. This compound trackway provides the first evidence of the previously unknown life behaviour and locomotion abilities of dipnoan fishes in the early stage of their evolution and documents a testing land mobility skills of vertebrates, predating by about 10 million years fully terrestrial tetrapods locomotion traces. Similar trackways are produced by extant lungfish during terrestrial locomotion. The trackway co-occurs with a new resting trace produced by a dipnoan fish supporting itself with one or two pairs of fins on the bottom.

Indexed as

Adaptation, PhysiologicalFishesFossilsLocomotionVertebratesAnimalsBiological EvolutionPolandDipnoansHoly Cross Mountains (Poland)Locomotion tracesLower Devonian

Identifiers

PMID40770042
PMCPMC12328633

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.