91É«ÇéƬ

OUR ancestors might not have evolved legs to drag themselves out of the water onto land after all. The real reason, claims Robert Martin, a palaeontologist at Murray State University in Kentucky, was to make them better at sex. Past research has shown that limbs evolved while animals still lived exclusively in shallow water, possibly to help them move around and evade predators. But limbs also allowed them to grasp their partners while mating, Martin told last week’s meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology in Norman, Oklahoma. With a sturdier grip, males would be more likely to impregnate their partners.