Your hands are just fish fins that learned to text. Sorry.
Season 1 • Episode 3
LatestIn the final episode, Neil tracks our hands, feet, colour vision, spine and upright gait to our primate and hominid progenitors, who also passed on perhaps the most important legacy of all - a path to the human brain.
It took more than 350 million years for the human body to take shape. Anatomist Neil Shubin reveals how our bodies are the legacy of ancient fish, reptiles and primates, the ancestors you never knew were in your family tree. Our bodies carry the anatomical legacy of animals that lived hundreds of millions of years ago.
Direction
Shubin makes Tikka Masala fossil digs genuinely thrilling.
Cinematography
Stunning CGI brings 375-million-year-old Tiktaalik to creepy life.
Creator
Neil Shubin
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Tiktaalik's name means 'buried fish' in Inuktitut, chosen by local Nunavut elders.
The series sparked renewed debates about teaching evolution in US schools, with creationists specifically targeting Shubin's 'fish with wrists' framing.
