Few science stories have delighted me as much as the one that appeared in the New York Times on April 29 (online) and April 30 (print). The story, by Sabrina Imbler, is about an extinct sea creature that may be a missing link between fish and four-legged mammals—a fishapod connection to our very own species.
Tiktaalik roseae illustration by Zina Deretsky for the National Science Foundation, 2006.
The news hook isn’t the creature’s discovery; that happened in 2004, in the Nunavut Territory in the Arctic. Nor is it the animal’s name, Tiktaalik (tic-TAH-lick), which departs from traditional scientific naming conventions—Latinate, possibly honoring a scientist—in that it’s an Inuktitut word that means “large freshwater fish that lives in the shallows.” (The full name, Tiktaalik roseae, does have a Latin component: The second element “cryptically honors an anonymous donor”—someone named Rose, maybe?—according to a Wikipedia entry.) A council of Inuit tribal elders worked with a team of paleontologists to develop the name.*
Here’s the reason for the headlines: Scientists have made new discoveries about Tiktaalik’s anatomy; and the internet has seized on Tiktaalik as a fertile source of memes.
Context for this meme: The Page 1 headline on the print edition of Imbler’s story is “Is Four-Footed Fish to Blame for World’s Woes?”
There is even, as you may have guessed by now, Tiktaalik TikTok. Call it #TiktaalikTok. Or #TikTokLik.
kids these days care too much about tik tok and not enough about tiktaalik, the Devonian era half-fish half-tetrapod that transitioned vertebrates from ocean to land. pic.twitter.com/PtfpvAz704
— Bris Angel (@Cryptoterra) February 11, 2020
Back to the Times story, which is so full of gems that I’ve unlocked it for you non-subscribers. Imbler is a deft, vivid, and witty writer, as these examples demonstrate:
- “The memes yearn to thwack Tiktaalik with a rolled-up newspaper or poke it with a stick—anything to shoo it back into the water and avoid our having to go to work or pay rent.”
- “Some [computerized tomography] scans revealed that Tiktaalik had unexpectedly massive hips (more like Thicctaalik) and a surprisingly big pelvic fin. The fish, instead of dragging itself with only its fore-fins, like a wheelbarrow, appeared to use all four fins to get around, like a jeep.”
- [The Late Devonian era] “was a goofy time to be a vertebrate, according to Ben Otoo, a graduate student studying early tetrapods at the University of Chicago. The vertebrates that did venture on land were still getting their land legs. ‘It’s a lot of galumphing, wriggling, slithering, huffing, flopping,’ they said. ‘It’s literally the flop era.’”
- “So if modern humans want to blame Tiktaalik for our woes, it seems only fair that we blame all the other nascent land-dwellers — those known and those yet to be discovered — for ushering in self-awareness and W-2 forms.”
Then there’s the Easter egg hidden in the web headline: “Started Out as a Fish. How Did It End Up Like This?” Astute readers have pointed out that it riffs on a lyric in “Mr. Brightside,” a 2003 song by The Killers: “It started out with a kiss; how did it end up like this?”
I am pleased to report that I have a small personal angle on this story. Zina Deretsky, the Tiktaalik illustrator, is a fellow Oaklander and a fellow bay swimmer (she swims with the South End Rowing Club and I swim with the next-door Dolphin Club). A year or so ago, a mutual acquaintance gave me an enamel pin that Zina had designed, with symbols that express our shared sentiment: “Cold water warms my heart.” (I’ll post a photo on my Twitter.) I still haven’t met Zina face to face, but we’ve exchanged emails, and I’m sure a real-life meetup isn’t too far off. In the meantime, enjoy a portfolio of her (and partner Alan Lapp’s) medical, scientific, and swimming illustrations at Level Five Studios.
Finally, was it chance or kismet that led me to this context-free sign in the CGV theater** in San Francisco Saturday evening?
“Working hard to evolve.” Just like the Tiktaalik.
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* This naming process reflects a recent movement to “decolonize” the scientific binomial. Read more about it in “Restoring Indigenous Names in Taxonomy,” a 2020 article in the journal Nature.
** The theater was a last-minute venue substitution for a San Francisco International Film Festival screening. It occupies part of an enormous 1921 building on Van Ness Avenue that once housed what must have been a glorious Cadillac dealership. See my photos here; read more about the building here. The film I saw, The Janes, is an outstanding, cautionary documentary about the brave women who championed and facilitated abortion services in pre–Roe v. Wade Chicago; it will air on HBO beginning June 8.
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