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Tag: fossil

  • Jawless Ancient Fish: Distant Relative To Humans

    Fossils of a prehistoric fish are revealing important details about the earliest vertebrate life on earth. A discovery was made that shows jaws evolved in animals that have backbones.

    On Wednesday, researchers described the fossil specimens of the fish that were uncovered at the Burgess Shale in the Canadian Rockies. Many of the fossils were preserved, which allowed scientists to study their body structures.

    The fish is called the Metaspriggina, and scientists said that it lived around 515 to 500 million years ago during the Cambrian Period. The Metaspriggina grew around two inches long and had no jaws. It had a tapering and narrow body, accompanied by a small head. It also had large eyes and small nasal sacs.

    However, Jean-Bernard Caron, one of the study authors from the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, said that the structures near the gills of the fish show the antecedent of a jaw.

    The Metaspriggina is one of the creatures that started the lineage of animals with backbones, including jawed fishes, birds, mammals, amphibians, reptiles, and even people.

    Caron said that studying fossils of the Metaspriggina allows us to have an understanding of where we came from and what our distant relatives might have looked like.

    “Metaspriggina is important because it fills an important gap in our understanding of the early evolution of the group to which we belong, but in particular shows with remarkable clarity the arrangement of the so-called branchial arches,” paleontologist from University of Cambridge Simon Conway Morris said.

    The Metaspriggina had seven pairs of gill arches that were used for respiration and for filtering food particles. The first pair were said to be more robust than the others, and may be the first step in the evolution of a working jaw, said Caron.

    A portion of the jaw bones eventually developed into middle ear bones in mammals. Caron said that this development of the arches into jaw bones made a great impact on how backbones appear and function today.

    Image via YouTube

  • Pinocchio Rex, T-Rex’s Cousin, Unearthed In China

    The skeleton of a new tyrannosaur was found at a construction site in China. The skeleton was identified as the cousin of the T-Rex, and named “Pinocchio Rex” for its lengthy nose. Scientists at the Edinburgh University in the U.K. named the new dinosaur Qianzhousaurus sinensis. They also described the creature as having a height of up to 9 meters. The Pinocchio Rex is said to have been present at the end of the age of dinosaurs in China.

    They further described the new dinosaur “ as having a long snout with many horns on its skull.” Steve Brusatte, a paleontologist who is one of the researchers, said “The long snout made us think of Pinocchio and his long nose, so Pinocchio Rex seemed like a cheeky nickname.”

    This is not the first time fossils of tyrannosaur fossils have been found. There were previous discoveries of the same species in Mongolia, but they were juveniles, so scientists could not identify if they would have had the same long snout when they turned into adults.

    For the Pinocchio Rex, however, Brusatte is certain that it is a mature dinosaur since it is twice the size of the fossils found in Mongolia.

    Based on studies, the Qianzhousaurus roamed the earth about 66 million years ago. Just about the time an asteroid supposedly hit the earth and wiped out most of the planet’s living creatures. “This species may have even witnessed the asteroid impact,” Brusatte said.

    With the discovery of this fossil, scientists say that they got the proof they need to confirm that long-snouted tyrannosaurs did, in fact, roam the earth.

    However, a new question arises. Scientists are now trying to determine why the Pinocchio Rex has a snout that is 35 percent longer than other dinosaurs that have been discovered.

    The scientists’ next move will be to study the fossil’s jaw and learn about its eating habits, so they can learn more about the species.

    Image via YouTube

  • Ancient Fish Found Had Front And Back Legs

    A strange looking ancient fish that was discovered off the coast of Canada’s Ellesmere Island tells us more than we previously knew about the evolution of limbed animals and their connection to humans.

    After further investigation of a 375 million-year-old fish known as Tiktaalik roseae, discovered in 2004, it was revealed that they may have developed rear legs before moving to land.

    This newest information challenges previous theories that these limbs evolved only after the move onto land. [ See Images of Tiktaalik Fish Fossils ]

    The fossil was definitely a fish, it had gills, scales and fins, however it also had four limbs that only amphibians such as reptiles and mammals possess, including a mobile neck and a robust rib cage.

    Previously the only parts of Tiktaalik that researchers examined were its front portions. It is, after all a fossil and was a bit difficult to fully assemble. But once they dug further into the blocks of dirt and rock retrieved where this ancient fish was found, they discovered that the blocks contained more fossils than they had once thought. Plus, it took years to remove the rock surrounding the fragile fossils carefully and properly.

    Tiktaalik possesses a broad flat head and sharp teeth and resembled a cross between a fish and a crocodile, estimated to have grown to a length of 9 feet (2.7 meters).

    Surprisingly, they found Tiktaalik had big, strong pelvic bones with similarities to early tetrapods and further proof of the evolution theory that all of life came from the ocean.

    “I was expecting to find a diminutive hind fin and pelvis,” study lead author Neil Shubin, a paleontologist at the University of Chicago, told LiveScience. “Seeing the whopping pelvis set me back a bit — I looked at it again and again, because I was quite surprised.”

    Shubin cautioned that Tiktaalik is not the ancestor of all limbed vertebrates. It is for now, the closest known relative, “but not the sole, direct ancestor,” he said. “It is more like our closest cousin.”

    Image via Wikimedia Commons #2 #3