A new research collaboration with support from the National Science Foundation, or NSF, begins an unprecedented study of walking cavefish to better understand the “fin-to-limb” transition that enabled the first vertebrates to walk on land more than 350 million years ago. This new research collaboration between LSU, New Jersey Institute of Technology, or NJIT, and University of Florida is set to launch the first evolutionary study of the unique pelvic structure and walking mechanics of the waterfall-climbing blind cavefish, or Cryptotora thamicola—the only living species of fish known capable of walking on land with a similar motion as four-limbed vertebrates, or tetrapods, which include mammals, reptiles and amphibians.