Blinking Fish May Reveal Secrets of Ancestral Evolution to Land Living.
Mudskippers, a subfamily of fish that live both on land and in the water, are the only fish that can blink, and they evolved this ability independently from our ancestors — a concept known as convergent evolution. Scientists think that blinking evolved in land animals when they made the transition from the oceans roughly 375 million years ago. Therefore, studying this example of convergent evolution has offered clues as to how our primordial ancestors first took to Earth's shores.