Derek Briggs, Yale paleontologist and YIBS faculty affiliate, is the lead author of a major new study published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B that sheds new light on how the ancestors of centipedes and millipedes made the transition from sea to land. Working with fossils from a quarry in Waukesha, Wisconsin - creatures he first identified as far back as 1985 - Briggs and his colleagues formally described a new species, Waukartus muscularis, dating to approximately 437 million years ago. The research reveals that these ancient arthropods had already developed the streamlined, walking-ready legs of their modern relatives while still living entirely underwater, upending assumptions about when and how key adaptations for terrestrial life evolved. The study was covered by The New York Times and represents a decades-long research journey finally brought to fruition.

For more information, click here for an article published by The New York Times or here for the full study in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.