The sun was high in the sky as it drew toward midday, the heat turning the air into a veritable sauna. Giant ferns and palm trees dotted the landscape, plants best suited to the harsh environment and conditions. A nearby volcano issued forth a continuous breath of steam as it lay momentarily dormant. Waves from the ocean lapped gently onto the sand before receding back to the body from which they came. The landscape was silent but for the occasional buzz of a small insect population.

A flurry of splashing marked the emergence of a creature from the water. It stood there on the sand, lidless eyes bulging from its head in a continual look of mock surprise, sunlight glinting off its scales, legs trembling as it struggled to support its own weight. Its mouth gaped open and shut repeatedly, for the first time inhaling the foreign air for its primary supply of oxygen. It stood poised momentarily, as though unsure of what to do. It had simply leaped from the water to snag an insect flying just above the water’s surface and found itself propped on the harsh, course sand. Now the insect was gone, forgotten, as the creature oriented itself to its new
surroundings. The sun ultimately settled the creature’s indecisiveness for it, the harsh rays stinging its eyes and nearly blinding it. A blur of motion, a splash of water, and the creature was gone, back to its native habitat.

Shortly after nightfall the creature re-emerged from the water. This time it took a few uncertain steps before awkwardly shambling further away from the waterline, his tailfin leaving erratic trails in the sand. It took some time for him to familiarize himself with using his limbs in such a fashion. He had always had them, but in the water he had never really had reason to use them. Chasing down his food required little more than exercising the strength of his tail and navigation of his forward fins. Occasionally, he had used his legs to flip himself around a submerged rock, but far and away his legs had only served as impediments to movement by creating drag
and slowing him down. He had often surrendered his prey to another of his species simply because the other had no such inhibiting limbs, making him sleeker and faster. Now, though, he was alone in his environment, and he found that he could move much more quickly as he became familiar with the mechanics of using his limbs on dry ground.

He chased insects for a time, filling his belly and sating his hunger, never straying too far from the waterline, keeping it always within view. He was not yet quite ready to abandon his native habitat, and the lightening of the sky indicated that dawn was not far away and with it the sun against which his eyes had no defenses. He also felt his body becoming dehydrated and stiff the longer away from the water he remained, so he gently slipped back into the breaking waves
and swam into the depths. He would return to the land again at nightfall, but for now the cycle had run its course and mating season was upon him. Instinct drove him into the deeper water.

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There is at least one fundamental, theoretical, and logical flaw in this story. What is it (or what are they)?