Neil Shubin Your Inner Fish Summary

For my extra credit book report, I chose to read “Your Inner Fish” by Neil Shubin. Neil Shubin is a highly regarded paleontologist, and is extremely qualified to have written this book. Shubin studied at Harvard university and earned his Ph.D. in organismic and evolutionary biology in 1987. He also studied at Columbia University, as well as Berkeley. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2011. He is currently the Robert R. Bensley professor of organismal biology and anatomy, Associate Dean of Organismal Biology and Anatomy and Professor on the committee of Evolutionary Biology at the University of Chicago as well as being the Provost of the Field Museum of Natural History. Shubin also is very well known for his discovery of

Shubin was convinced that the Arctic Circle had the best chance for the discovery of this creature. He performed extensive research regarding the antiquity of the rocks, and the Arctic Circle had the oldest rocks than any place he had ever been to. He always found fossils and added to the evidence of the species, but he wanted the creature itself- fossil evidence of the actual animal itself. At first, to Shubin’s dismay he couldn’t find evidence of the fossil, and when he was packing up his gear to leave, something incredible happened. A grad student who was part of Shubin’s crew found a tremendous number of fossils. Shubin and his crew tore into the area and, just as Shubin and many others had predicted the creature actually had multiple elements. The elements in particular were both fish and amphibian. They learned from rock progression that this creature’s life was just about 375,000 years ago. Since Shubin and his colleagues successfully discovered the creature they were given rights to name it. Shubin and his colleagues named it “Tiktaalik” which meant large freshwater