Definition of tetrapod Tetrapod

tet•ra•pod

We found 9 definitions of tetrapod from 6 different sources.

What does tetrapod mean?

WordNet

Noun

Plural: tetrapods

tetrapod - a vertebrate animal having four feet or legs or leglike appendages

craniate, vertebrate animals having a bony or cartilaginous skeleton with a segmented spinal column and a large brain enclosed in a skull or cranium

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Wiktionary

tetrapod (Noun)
Any vertebrate with four limbs.
tetrapod (Noun)
Any vertebrate such as birds or snakes that have evolved from early tetrapods; especially all members of the superclass Tetrapoda.
tetrapod (Noun)
Concrete structures with 'arms' used to arrest wave energy along the shore in sea defence projects.
tetrapod (Adjective)
Having four limbs or feet.

Webster DictionaryWebster's Unabridged Dictionary 📘

tetrapod (n.)
An insect characterized by having but four perfect legs, as certain of the butterflies.

Chambers DictionaryChamber's 20th Century Dictionary 📕

tetrapod
tet′ra-pod, n. an insect distinguished by having but four perfect legs.—adj. four-footed, with four legs—also Tetrap′odous.—n. Tetrap′ody, a group of four feet. [Gr., tetra-, four, pous, podos, foot.]

Wikipedia

Tetrapods (Greek "tetrapoda", Latin "quadruped", "four-legged") are vertebrate animals. Tetrapods have four feet, legs or leglike appendages, for example arms or wings. Amphibians, reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals are all tetrapods. Even though snakes do not have limbs, they are tetrapods because they evolved from animals with four limbs. The earliest tetrapods evolved from the Sarcopterygii, or lobe-finned fishes, into air-breathing amphibians in the Devonian period.

Evolution.

Research by Jennifer A. Clack showed that the earliest tetrapods lived entirely in water. They could not live on land. Before this, it was believed that fish had first moved onto land - either looking for food (like modern mudskippers) or to find water when the pond they lived in dried out. It was believed that they later evolved legs, lungs, and other body parts to live better on land.

The first tetrapods are now thought to have evolved in shallow and swampy freshwater habitats during a time near the end of the Devonian, a little more than 365 million years ago.

Freshwater habitats were not the only places they could be found. Swampy habitats like shallow wetlands, coastal lagoons and river deltas also existed at this time. There is much to suggest that this is the kind of environment in which the tetrapods evolved. Early fossil tetrapods have been found in marine sediments. Also, because fossils of early tetrapods are found all around the world, they must have spread by following the coastal