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Fossils, genes and the evolution of animal limbs

Nature volume 388, pages 639–648 (1997)Cite this article

Abstract

The morphological and functional evolution of appendages has played a crucial role in the adaptive radiation of tetrapods, arthropods and winged insects. The origin and diversification of fins, wings and other structures, long a focus of palaeontology, can now be approached through developmental genetics. Modifications of appendage number and architecture in each phylum are correlated with regulatory changes in specific patterning genes. Although their respective evolutionary histories are unique, vertebrate, insect and other animal appendages are organized by a similar genetic regulatory system that may have been established in a common ancestor.

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Figure 1: Major innovations of vertebrate paired appendages.
Figure 2: Stylopod, zeugopod, and autopod: patterning the limb.
Figure 3: The origin of digits.
Figure 4: The lobopod–arthropod transition and the diversification of arthropod limb patterns.
Figure 5: The evolution of the arthropod limb and the origin of the insect wing.
Figure 6: A cladogram of selected metazoans shows the distribution of major genes involved with appendage development.

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Acknowledgements

We thank P. Ahlberg, G. Budd, A. C. Burke, M. Coates, A. Meyer, G. Panganiban, P. Sniegowski, D. Wake, R. S. Winters, L. Wolpert and members of our laboratories for their critiques of drafts of this manuscript. S.B.C. is an investigator of the HHMI. C.T. is supported by grants from the NIH and the American Cancer Society. N.S. is supported by grants from the NSF, from the National Geographic Society and from the Research Foundation of the University of Pennsylvania.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 19104, Pennsylvania, USA

    Neil Shubin

  2. Cliff Tabin is in the Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, 200 Longwood Avenue, Boston, 02115, Massachusetts, USA

    Cliff Tabin

  3. Sean Carroll is at the HHMI and Laboratory of Molecular Biology, University of Wisconsin, 1525 Linden Drive, Madison, 53706, Wisconsin, USA

    Sean Carroll

  4. Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to N.S.,

    Neil Shubin

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Shubin, N., Tabin, C. & Carroll, S. Fossils, genes and the evolution of animal limbs. Nature 388, 639–648 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1038/41710

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