A new paper in Nature suggests that before we were apes we were fish and not just any old fish. The primitive fish which predates the split between sharks and bony fish, Acanthodes bronni was the common ancestor of all jawed vertebrates on Earth – including mankind, according to the paper. The split with bony fish occurred some 420 million years ago and Acanthodes bronni disappeared some 250 million years ago.
The researchers re-examined fossils of Acanthodes bronni, the best-preserved acanthodian species. They created highly detailed latex moulds of specimens revealing the inside and outside of the skull, generating a new data set for assessing cranial and jaw anatomy as well as the organizations of sensory, circulatory and respiratory systems in the species. The analysis of the sample combined with recent CT scans of skulls from early sharks and bony fishes led to the reassessment of what Acanthodes bronni tells us about the history of jawed vertebrates.
Acanthodes bronni : Wikipedia
Acanthodes and shark-like conditions in the last common ancestor of modern gnathostomes
(more…)
The k2p blog 