Tetrapods Came from the Ocean
It's widely known that the scientific consensus on the origins of tetrapods, is that they evolved from fish. It's also widely known that the ocean is largest region where fish are found. This trope is a fish coming onto land on a beach from a large mass of water, presumably from the ocean. This portraying evolution, or a gag based on evolution, incorrectly. Tetrapods probably came from fresh water[1] Hence why amphibians, the intermediate evolutionary step between other tetrapods, live in fresh water for at least part of their life cycle.
Of course this trope may have actually been the scientific view, but it's not anymore (if so, if someone could give a date that would be great).
A variety of Artistic License: Biology.
Examples of Tetrapods Came from the Ocean include:
Film
- Evolution has fish throwing themselves on a beach so that some of them could survive and evolve. The film was originally meant to be serious science fiction but was turned into a comedy during the production when the film makers noticed how hilariously wrong the science was.
Video Games
- EVO the Search For Eden plays this trope straight, being an RPG based on the typical public conception of how evolution works.
Western Animation
- In the beginning episode "The Parasite" of Teen Titans Go there is a gag along the lines of this trope.
- In the Couch Gag, "Homer Evolution", in The Simpsons, Homer as a proto-tetrapod crawls out of the ocean.
- ↑ more specifically the most likely candidate, at least for now, is Tiktaalik, which is Inuktitut for “Burbot” or “large fresh water fish”. Tiktaalik probably lived in a swamp.