Walking fish filmed in slow motion

Researchers in the US have filmed the bizarre-looking mudskipper fish in an experiment to reveal clues about how four-legged animals were able to move out of the water and onto land more than 350 million years ago.

Sandy Kawano and Richard Blob at Clemson University in South Carolina, US, filmed the animals and measured the pressures their semi-aquatic fins as they used them to move on land.

The scientists explained that the mudskipper is ideal for their evolutionary investigation, because it is so similar physically to long-extinct species that have been discovered as fossils during that period.

The results, including the slow motion footage of the mudskipper's movement, were presented at the Society for Experimental Biology's annual meeting in Valencia, Spain.

Footage courtesy of Sandy Kawano and Richard Blob, Clemson University