Tiktaalik

About

The Tiktaalik is an extinct bony fish that has been described as an evolutionary link between fish and four-legged animals.^[1] It has become a meme online due to its status as a potential ancestor of modern humans.

Origin

In 2004, three well-preserved Tiktaalik fossils were discovered on Ellesmere Island in Nunavut, Canada by Edward B. Daeschler, Neil H. Shubin, and Farish A. Jenkins, Jr.^[3] Their findings were published in Nature magazine in 2006.^[4] The name "Tiktaalik" is an Inuktitut word for "large freshwater fish."^[2]

On April 5th, 2006, a now-famous rendition of the Tiktaalik was released with a news release by the National Science Foundation (shown below).^[5] Created by illustrator Zina Deretsky, the image shows a Tiktaalik crawling onto land from water. The illustration soon became widely used in textbooks as an example of a transitional species.^[6]

Spread

The Tiktaalik is assumed to be a very early ancestor of humans and to have played a key role in life's transition from sea to land. One of the earliest memes about the Tiktaalik appeared on December 15th, 2018, in a post by Redditor poccoscfc to the /r/memes subreddit (shown below).^[7]

In the ensuing months, much of the content surrounding Tiktaalik has focused on ironic hatred due to the creature supposedly being the source of modern social problems (examples shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References