skull and the vertebral column (not yet present in the earliest tetrapods), may be related to lifting the snout out of the water to air or to snap at prey items.” The six fingered hands and toes were stronger than the fins from which they developed, therefore Tulerpeton had an advantage in propelling itself through shallow and brackish water, but the limbs do not yet seem strong enough for extensive use on land. Significance of the find Tulerpeton is one of the early transition tetrapods – a marine animal capable of living on land. The separation of the pectoral-shoulder girdle from the head allowed the head to move up and down, and the strengthening of the legs and arms allowed the early tetrapods to propel themselves on land. Tulerpeton is important in the study of dactyly. The polydactyl (more than five toes) condition of Tulerpeton caused considerable comment when the fossil was first discovered. Before the discovery, the pentadactyl five-fingered condition that is ancestral to all living tetrapods, was thought to have developed before the first terrestrial tetrapods appeared. But the discoveries of Acanthostega and Ichthyostega confirm that the pentadactyl ancestor came later in the development of tetrapods. Phylogenetic studies conducted by Lebedev and Coates (1995) and Coates (1996) indicated that Tulerpeton was the earliest and basalmost member of the clade containing amniotes and all extinct tetrapods that were more closely related to amniotes than to lissamphibians (living amphibians). However, later phylogenetic studies recovered Tulerpeton outside the least inclusive clade containing amniotes and lissamphibians, finding it to be more distantly related to amniotes than such extinct tetrapods as lepospondyls, seymouriamorphs, Embolomeri, temnospondyls, baphetids, colosteids and whatcheeriids were. Michael Benton (2005) noted that, due to the fact that Tulerpeton had more than five toes, establishing its exact phylogenetic position is important to our understanding of digital reduction in tetrapods. If it indeed was more closely related to amniotes than lissamphibians are, it would mean that "reduction to five digits had to happen twice, once on the line to amphibians and once on the reptiliomorph line"; on the other hand, if it lies outside the least inclusive clade containing amniotes and lissamphibians, then "digital reduction happened once, between Tulerpeton and later tetrapods". Notes References The Devonian Times reports on Tulerpeton Gordon, M.S. and Long, J.A. (2004) The Greatest Step In Vertebrate History: A Paleobiological Review of the Fish-Tetrapod Transition. Physiological and Biochemical