The vertebral column develops in the same way in modern animals as it did 300 million years ago

Ancient fossils reveal the evolutionary history of ossification in the spine of land vertebrates. A study conducted by researchers from the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin revealed the evolution of ossification patterns in the backbones of four-legged vertebrates. Antoine Verrière and his colleagues were able to reconstruct the patterns of how the bones in the vertebral column formed in the ancestor to all land vertebrates based on a large dataset of modern and fossil vertebrates with the inclusion of rare new data from the 300 Ma old reptile Mesosaurus tenuidens. The results are published this week in Scientific Reports. The backbone or vertebral column is the defining and name giving feature of all vertebrates and its development is generally well understood. However, some crucial parts of its evolutionary history remain enigmatic. A new study by a team from the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin, Germany, uncovers new aspects of this history.