Tetrapod Tetrapods (Greek τετραποδη tetrapoda, Latin quadruped, "four-footed") are vertebrate animals having four feet, legs or leglike appendages. Amphibians, reptiles, dinosaurs/birds, and mammals are all tetrapods, and even the limbless snakes are tetrapods by descent. The earliest tetrapods radiated from the Sarcopterygii, or lobe-finned fish, evolving into air-breathing amphibians in the Devonian period.