<Table> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> This article may be too technical for most readers to understand . Please help improve it to make it understandable to non-experts, without removing the technical details . The talk page may contain suggestions . (May 2015) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) </Td> </Tr> </Table> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> This article may be too technical for most readers to understand . Please help improve it to make it understandable to non-experts, without removing the technical details . The talk page may contain suggestions . (May 2015) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) </Td> </Tr> <P> The aquatic to terrestrial transition of vertebrate organisms occurred in the late Devonian era and was an important step in the evolutionary history of modern land vertebrates . The transition allowed animals to escape competitive pressure from the water and explore niche opportunities on land . Fossils from this period have allowed scientists to identify some of the species that existed during this transition, such as Tiktaalik and Acanthostega . Many of these species were also the first to develop adaptations suited to terrestrial over aquatic life, such as neck mobility and hindlimb locomotion . </P> <P> The late Devonian vertebrate transition was not the only terrestrial invasion in evolutionary history . The vertebrate transition was preceded by the plant and invertebrate terrestrial invasion . These invasions allowed for the appropriate niche development that would ultimately facilitate the vertebrate invasion . Furthermore, the late Devonian event is only significant in that it was the first land invasion by vertebrate organisms, and that it resulted in an explosion of vertebrate biodiversity due to the many different niches that these species were able to exploit . However, aquatic species have continued to develop adaptations suited to terrestrial life (and vice versa) from the late Devonian to the Holocene . </P>

When did amphibians begin to colonize land as the first terrestrial vertebrates