Life onto Land: The Devonian

Find out how life took its first steps onto land. Discover Tiktaalik, an iconic fossil that helps us understand how fins became limbs.

Inuktitut | Inuinnaqtun | English

Find out how life took its first steps onto land. Discover Tiktaalik, an iconic fossil that helps us understand how fins became limbs—on view for the first time in Canada.

Before dinosaurs ruled the Earth, life was taking its first steps onto land.

Life onto Land: The Devonian, invites visitors to explore this incredible world through rare fossils, and artistic reconstructions, including a model of Tiktaalik roseae, a fascinating creature connecting fish to four-limbed animals like us.

If you enjoy fossils and dinosaurs, don’t miss this extraordinary look at the origins of life on land.

About Tiktaalik roseae

American palaeontologists unearthed the Tiktaalik roseae fossil on Ellesmere Island in Nunavut in 2004.

Since then, Tiktaalik roseae has been critical in our understanding of how fins became limbs—or, of how terrestrial, limbed vertebrates, like humans, arose from aquatic, lobe-finned ancestors.

It is the holotype—the original fossil used to describe and name the species.

Is Tiktaalik an evolutionary "missing link"?

Not really—the popular term "missing link" is misleading. Tiktaalik is a transitional fossil.

Evolution is more like a tree or a puzzle than a single, continuous chain.

Tiktaalik may not be our direct ancestor, but an animal that tells us what our ancient ancestor probably looked like.

Partnership with Inuit Communities

Tiktaalik was named in consultation with Inuit elders. Its name means "a large freshwater fish seen in the shallows" in Inuktitut.

Many researchers rely on Inuit expertise about the Arctic, weather and wildlife to work safely, and share their findings with the community.

The Canadian Museum of Nature is the temporary caretaker of thousands of specimens from Nunavut. A new museum and heritage centre is planned for Iqaluit. Once opened, the Nunavut Collections will be kept there.

Catch a glimpse of the exhibition

[Music plays throughout the video]

[On-screen text] Life onto Land: The Devonian La vie sur la terre ferme : le Dévonien

[Exhibition promotional poster]

[Logos: Canadian Museum of Nature/Musée canadien de la nature. Government of Canada/Gouvernement du Canada]

Meet Tiktaalik roseae

[Tetsuto Miyashita, Ph.D., Palaeobiologist, Canadian Museum of Nature]

Long before dinosaurs ruled the Earth, our planet was undergoing one of the most dramatic transformations in its history.

Oceans teemed with life.

New ecosystems emerged.

And for the first time, vertebrates began to explore life beyond water.

At the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa, Life onto Land: The Devonian brings this extraordinary chapter to life.

At the heart of this story is one extraordinary fossil.

This is Tiktaalik roseae, one of the most important fossil discoveries ever made.

[On-screen text : Tiktaalik roseae Late Devonian Period 375 million years ago]

[Tetsuto Miyashita] Tiktaalik lived about 375 million years ago, during a time when life was experimenting with new ways to survive.

The story of Tiktaalik is also the story of its discovery.

To understand why this fossil matters, it helps to hear directly from the scientists who helped bring it to the world.

Neil Shubin is a palaeontologist and evolutionary biologist who helped discover Tiktaalik in Canada’s High Arctic.

His work transformed how scientists understand the transition from life in water to life on land.

[Neil Shubin, Ph.D., Professor of Organismal Biology and Anatomy, University of Chicago] Yeah, what you have is a critter that is a real mix of characteristics.

It’s really, it was really amazing when we first found it.

You know, like a fish, it has scales on its back and fins with fin webbing.

And there’s all kinds of other parts of it that are very fishy.

But, like an animal that lives on land, you know, a limbed animal, it has a flat head with eyes on top.

It has a neck.

And when you look inside the fin, what do you see?

[On-screen text: Tiktaalik roseae NUFV 110 pectoral fin Scales digitally removed and fin rays highlighted]

[Neil Shubin] You see bones that correspond to upper arm, forearm, even parts of a wrist.

It’s really kind of amazing.

It’s a mix of creatures that live in water and creatures that live on land.

It shows us how creatures evolved to walk on land—a pivotal moment in the history of our world, and a pivotal moment in the history of our own body.

So when we discovered the, this fossil in rocks that were 375 million years old in Nunavut Territory on southern Ellesmere Island, it seemed very natural for us to engage the local Inuit community in coming up with a name.

And Tiktaalik is a name of a flat-headed fish, actually a living one that they, that they fish in the western part of the Arctic.

So they suggested that name to us when we asked them for a name, and it stuck.

[On-screen text: Tiktaalik is an Inuktitut word that means “large freshwater fish”]

[Tetsuto Miyashita] Life onto Land: The Devonian invites visitors to explore one of the most important transitions in the history of life through rare fossils, Canadian research and discoveries that continue to shape how we understand our world.

Visit the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa and experience Life onto Land: The Devonian in person.

[On-screen text: Media Credits Great Transitions: The Origins of Tetrapods HHMI BioInteractive Video series © Howard Hughes Medical Institute, 2004]

[Logos: Canadian Museum of Nature/Musée canadien de la nature. Government of Canada/Gouvernement du Canada]

In partnership with

The Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University

Share on social media

Fossil Gallery

Journey back in time to explore the dramatic events that led to the extinction of dinosaurs and the rise of mammals.

Qikiqtait ᕿᑭᖅᑕᐃᑦ

The Qikiqtait exhibition in the Polar Knowledge Canada Northern Voices Gallery celebrates Inuit knowledge and innovation from the Arctic Eider Society in Sanikiluaq.

Water Gallery

Canada is surrounded by ocean and has the longest coastline in the world. Discover the wonders of water on our big blue planet.

Visiting

On view through 2028-09-04. These are exhibition dates; follow the museum’s current opening hours and admission information when planning a visit.