[Faline]

It’s always nice to catch up with an old face – and here’s one from 419 million years ago…

A team of international scientists have found a fish fossil at the bottom of a reservoir that is the oldest known creature with a face.

And they believe it is the “missing link” in the *development of vertebrates, offering more clues to *the evolution of humans.

Experts have described the discovery in China as *“stunning”.

Palaeontologist Professor John Long of Flinders *University, Adelaide, said: “It finally solves an age-old problem about the origin of modern fishes.

“We now know prehistoric fish gave rise to the modern fish fauna as we know it.”

Fellow palaeontologist Matt Friedman added: “It will take time to fully digest the *implications of such a *remarkable fossil, but it is clear that a major reframing of our understanding of early jawed vertebrate evolution is now in full swing.”

The fish they found would have been eight-inches long and armour plated.

It is the most primitive vertebrate discovered with a modern jaw, and includes a bone found in humans.

British fossil expert Matt Friedman said of the creature: “It is the deepest branch of our family tree that bears the kinds of jaw bones found in humans.

“This is an unexpected discovery that inverts *schoolbook teaching on the evolution of bony skulls.

“Up until now it had been thought the anatomical *peculiarities of bony fishes, the group that would *eventually give rise to human beings, are specialisations that arose later in vertebrate evolutionary history in our own bony fish lineage.

“But now that narrative has been turned on its head.”

The fossil was shown off by Professor Min Zhu, one of the team of scientists who found it, in his Beijing laboratory.

[kellyhound]

cool discovery

Taxonomic rank Name Common name Millions of
years ago
Domain Eukaryota Cells with a nucleus 2,100
Kingdom Animalia Animals 590
Phylum Chordata Vertebrates and closely related invertebrates 530
Subphylum Vertebrata Vertebrates 505
Superclass Tetrapoda Tetrapods 395
Unranked Amniota Amniotes, tetrapods that are fully terrestrially-adapted 340
Class Mammalia Mammals 220
Subclass Theriiformes Mammals that birth live young (i.e. non-egg-laying)
Infraclass Eutheria Placental mammals (i.e. non-marsupials) 125
Magnorder Boreoeutheria Supraprimates, bats, whales, most hoofed mammals, and most carnivorous mammals
Superorder Euarchontoglires Supraprimates (primates, rodents, rabbits, tree shrews, and colugos) 100
Grandorder Euarchonta Primates, colugos and tree shrews
Mirorder Primatomorpha Primates and colugos 79.6
Order Primates Primates 75
Suborder Haplorrhini "Dry-nosed" (literally, "simple-nosed") primates (apes, monkeys, and tarsiers) 40
Infraorder Simiiformes "Higher" primates (or Simians) (apes, old-world monkeys, and new-world monkeys)
Parvorder Catarrhini "Downward-nosed" primates (apes and old-world monkeys) 30
Superfamily Hominoidea Apes 28
Family Hominidae Great apes (Humans, chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans) 15
Subfamily Homininae Humans, chimpanzees, bonobos, and gorillas 8
Tribe Hominini Genera Homo and Australopithecus 5.8
Subtribe Hominina Contains only the Genus Homo 2.5
Genus Homo Humans 2.5
Species (Archaic) Homo sapiens Modern humans 0.5
Subspecies Homo sapiens sapiens Fully anatomically modern humans 0.2