Missing link found: early jawed fish

Here's a link to the news article

quote:

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419-million-year-old armoured fish fossil resolves 'missing link' in evolution, scientists say

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A team of scientists, including an Australian, have found a fossil of a 419-million-year-old ancient armoured fish, in what is being hailed as the most significant paleontological discovery in decades.

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Palaeontologists say the fossilised fish, which was found in the suburbs of a city in south-west China, is probably the earliest creature with a recognisable jaw.

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Hundreds of millions of years ago, fish known as Placoderms had armoured plates and dominated the oceans.

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For years, the world's top evolutionary scientists thought Placoderms died out and then somehow modern fish evolved.

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"The unknown question was where did modern fish fauna come from, who was their ancestor?" Professor Long said.

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"This ancient fish called Entelognathus is the missing link because it shows that the extinct armoured Placoderms fishes, which dominated the seas, rivers and lakes of the world for 70 million years, actually were the ancestors to all the living fish on the planet today."

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At the time of its existence, the fish lived in a warm tropical sea when China was a separate landmass to Asia.

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Discovery calls for further research

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Professor Long says the fossil dates to about 50 million years before fish became amphibious.

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"This is a huge discovery for science, not just palaeontology," he said.

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"This fish fills a gap between an extinct class of animals and the entire living fish fauna on the planet, which is 30,000 species.

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"It's a huge discovery that fills a massive gap in our knowledge of the evolution of the first backboned animals."

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The Chinese Academy of Science's Professor Zhu, who led the study, says the fossil's jaw looks a lot like those of modern fish.

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She says this shows the Placoderm to be the ancestors of modern fish.

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"It has a jaw similar to the modern fish, so we can see intermediary between Placoderms and modern fish or modern vertebrae," Professor Zhu said.

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As well as in China, significant ancient fossils have also been found in Australia.

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Professor Long says the Amadeus Basin, east of Alice Springs, is another place where scientists could unlock the mysteries of evolution.

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"We think that the biggest gap in the whole of early vertebrate evolution, down the base of the whole tree, is gap between the jawless fishes and the first jawed fishes like these armoured Placoderms," he said.

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"There hasn't been any transition intermediate fossil formed in that space yet found, but the oldest fossil fishes with bone occur right here in central Australia.

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"I think a lot more searching needs to be done and we could find the answers to some of these really big questions right here in our own country."

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The mainly Chinese research team includes an Australian former PhD student of Professor Long.

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The study is published in the journal Nature today.

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HUH? Is there a wrong word in there?

Wiki says "The first major groups of amphibians developed in the Devonian period, around 370 million years ago, from lobe-finned fish similar to the modern coelacanth..." so 370 million + 50 million seems about right for the age of this find.

I'm not seeing it. Which word are you referring to?

But lobe-finned fish already had jaws. Weren't there even earlier jawed fish like Placoderms and weren't they even further back than 420 million years ago?

According to Wiki, you are correct.

Amazing.I was shooting from memory which is often wrong, but I still think it is most likely that that sentence in the article is likely just the reporter misunderstanding of what was actually said or taken out of context.

I read it differently.I read the sentence to mean that amphibians developed some 50 million years after this find.

But they are dating this find at 419 million years ago.How does that jibe with there being earlier jawed fish?What do amphibians have to do with when recognizable jaws first appeared?

Your initial quote from the article was: It seems that this is correct.Perhaps you pulled a quote other than you intended for that post? As it does seem that jawed fish were already known from that time period and somewhat earlier?

No, I still don't see how that connects to the story. It is just part of the issues with the story as posted and as I said, I get the feeling that the reporter got lots out of context or misrepresented.

I really wish they wouldn't scream 'missing link' everytime an important new fossil is found - it gives totally the wrong impression of what evolution is.

I wonder if this is actually a quote from one of the scientists involved or a misunderstanding by the reporter. This fossil may have jaw features that are transitional, but there is no way to know if it is "the ancestor of all modern fishes".I can understand a scientist saying something like that to a reporter to emphasize how import and exciting this new find is, and thinking that the reporter actually understands that this is an exaggeration like his scientist colleagues would understand it.Have seen this kind of situation when I and some of my fellow dragonfly specialists talk to reporters. When we say that Tanypteryx hageni is a "living fossil" it means one thing to us and something different to the reporter and so may convey a completely erroneous meaning to the reader.

Yeah, you're right, that's just how science reporting works: Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

That's not a misquote at all, you've just misread it. Nowhere does it say that this fish in particular is the ancestor of modern fishes. It says that placoderms are the ancestors of modern fishes. Just like someone might point to a feathered dinosaur fossil and present it as strong evidence that dinosaurs are the ancestors of birds, without implying that this particular fossil is a bird ancestor.If you want the article's misquote, then you should be looking at this one:

quote:

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"It has a jaw similar to the modern fish, so we can see intermediary between Placoderms and modern fish or modern vertebrae,"

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I suspect Professor Zhu said 'vertebrates', rather than 'vertebrae'. Although we could be generous to the reporter and blame on it on the Professor's English skills.