Trapped in a fossil, this extinct fish (Gogo arthodires, which lived on the planet before the dinosaurs) was discovered in the Gogo Formation, an ancient coral that is now a repository of fossils of this extinct animal. “Evolution is often thought of as a series of small steps, but these fossils suggest a greater leap between jawless and jawless vertebrates. These fish [os Gogo] Explains Kate Triangstick, researcher at Curtin University (Australia) and head of the research published in the scientific journal Sciences.
The Gogo fish is the first of a class of prehistoric fish called Placoderms. They were the first fish to have a jaw and teeth. Before them, the thickness of the fish was not more than 30 cm, but the placoderms can grow up to nine meters in length. Placoderms were the dominant life form on the planet, 100 million years before the first dinosaurs existed. Bones, not soft tissues, are usually turned into fossils – but at this Kimberley site, minerals have preserved many of the fish’s internal organs, including the liver, stomach, intestine, and heart.
“We were able, for the first time, to see all the organs of a primitive fish with a jaw, and we were especially surprised to learn that they were no different from ours,” the researcher says in a statement.
From the 380 million-year-old core and its location, scientists can better understand the evolution process on Earth. For example, it is interesting to see how the head and neck region began to change to accommodate jaws, a critical stage in the evolutionary process that reaches humans and other species.
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