Tiktaalik is a transitional fossil; it is to tetrapods what Archaeopteryx is to birds, troodonts and dromaeosaurids. 1  While it may be that neither is ancestor to any living animal, they serve as evidence that intermediates between very different types of vertebrates did once exist.
Minnesota became a part of the United States as the Minnesota Territory in 1849, and became the 32nd U.S. state on May 11, 1858.
Minnesota Zip Codes. Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state on May 11, 1858. Known as the Land of 10,000 Lakes, the state's name comes from a Dakota word for sky-tinted water.