Missing Link Project
Amphibians To Reptiles
Geological Timeline
Devonian Times 390 Million Years Ago
Animals begin to resemble amphibians, Fish Develop Lungs and Walk on Land
Carboniferous Period & Permian Period 300,000,000 - 250,000,000 Years Ago
Amphibians become adapted to life on land.
325,000,000 - 250,000,000 years ago
Amphibians start to evolve into Reptiles
Carboniferous Period 325,000,000 years ago
Reptiles become more abundant.
Names of the animals going through the evolution
A amniote, a Hylonomus, westlothiana, and paleothyris etc.
A baby tortoise emerges from an amniotic egg.
Hylonomus
Fossil of a Westlthiana
Where all these fossils were found.
The earliest well-known amphibian, Ichthyostega, was found in Late Devonian deposits in Greenland, dating back about 363 million years. The earliest amphibian discovered to date is Elginerpeton, found in Late Devonian rocks of Scotland dating to approximately 368 million years ago. The later Paleozoic saw a great diversity of amphibians, ranging from small legless swimming forms (Aistopoda) to bizarre "horned" forms (Nectridea). Other Paleozoic amphibians more or less resembled salamanders outwardly but differed in details of skeletal structure. Exactly how to classify these fossils, and how they might be related to living amphibians, is still debated by paleontologists. Shown at the right is Phlegethontia, an aistopod from the Pennsylvanian.