fishapod

English

Etymology

A blend of fish +‎ tetrapod, Coined by American paleontologist Neil Shubin circa 2006. Analyzable as fish +‎ -a- +‎ -pod

Noun

fishapod (plural fishapods)

  1. (informal, paleontology) Any of several extinct creatures of the subclass Tetrapodomorpha having features both of fish and tetrapods, especially Tiktaalik.
    • 2012, Caspar Henderson, The Book of Barely Imagined Beings, Granta Books, published 2013, page 12:
      In these conditions, ‘fishapods’, able to do push-ups on proto-limbs to gulp fresh air from just above its river habitat, would have had an edge over those relying only on gills to extract meagre oxygen from the murky water.
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