Wisconsin fossil hints land-ready legs evolved underwater long before landfall
Paleontologists describe 437-million-year-old fossils of the aquatic arthropod Waukartus muscularis from Wisconsin, showing uniramous limbs akin to land-dwelling relatives and suggesting myriapods developed many legs underwater before ever reaching land, with the loss of branched exopods occurring prior to terrestrialization and reshaping how we understand the evolution of land-walking traits.