"A new vision for studying and understanding biological evolution emerges when the concepts of phylogenetic systematics and exaptation are combined, and also a new definition of macroevolution is created. Preadaptation is shown to be null and its comparison with exaptation is shown to be inappropriate. This book criticizes the prevailing view, the adaptationist, microevolutionary outlook, as being the exclusive or main evolutionary process responsible for vertebrates to have occupied the terrestrial environment. The authors argue that the macroevolutionary processes are significantly more important to explain an improbable evolutionary event and that their research shows that macroevolutionary processes are the dominant factors involved in the origin of terrestriality. This book is a revised and expanded English translation from the original Portuguese edition Peixes conquistam a terra firme: nova abordagem para um evento acidental âunico (Editora Baraâuna in 2017)"--