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Updated: Aug 6, 2026

Computer-Generated Animal Model Stimuli
Published on: July 29, 2007
Fossils, genes and the evolution of animal limbs
1Department of Biology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia 19104, USA. nshubin@sas.upenn.edu
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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