The elpistostege fish is thought to be among the first to emerge from the sea onto land. Its fossil found in Quebec, Canada has revealed new insights into how the human hand evolved from fish fins

Some 380 million years ago a particularly vicious sea-dwelling predator terrorised the tropical lagoons in which it lived. And this fish was equipped with far more than a mouthful of razor sharp teeth: it also had the first known fingers.

An extraordinary new fossil of the creature has rewritten the story of the origins of the human hand. The remains reveal how the architecture of our fingers and wrists was present in a pectoral fin of an ancient fish that lived in what is now Quebec.

The researchers behind the discovery have called it “the missing evolutionary link” that explains how four-legged vertebrates clambered from the seas on to land.

“This finding pushes back the origin of digits in vertebrates to the fish level, and