Eli5: How was the first ancient animal to ever step (foot?) out of the water, able to survive breathing air instead of water?
In: Biology
As animals that lived close to the edge of the water, there would have been some incentive to get closer and closer to the edge. Whether that was predation or access to food, who knows. The ones that could get closest survived and passed on their genes by breeding. Next they could live semi submerged after a very long time. Then they could take short trips on land, then long trips, and eventually stay on land.
Keep in mind that each of these steps took thousands of generations to accomplish (unless looking at great leap type evolution.)
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