Science Events Audio

Neil Shubin is a distinguished paleontologist whose research seeks to understand the mechanics behind the evolutionary origin of anatomical features of animals. His work focuses mainly on the Devonian and Triassic periods to understand the pivotal ecological and evolutionary shifts that occurred during that time. In 2004, after scouring the Canadian Artic for six years, Shubin and his team unearthed the Tiktaalik roseae, a fossil “fishapod,” which, despite its fish-like features, had a neck, skull, ribs, and parts of limbs similar to land animals. This discovery represents the transition between fish and four-legged mammals that occurred over 350 million years ago.  Hitchcock Lecture description: Evolutionary biology is a science that allows us to make predictions, about fossils in the geological record and the activity of different genes in different kinds of creatures.  In his first lecture, Professor Shubin will discuss how this type of approach helps us to understand some of the grea