Materpiscis: Difference between revisions
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Fox News: Primitive Fish Skeleton May Link Land, Sea Interview with Dr John Long, curator at the Museum of Victoria |
Fox News: Primitive Fish Skeleton May Link Land, Sea Interview with Dr John Long, curator at the Museum of Victoria |
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Revision as of 00:20, 29 May 2008
Materpiscis
Fossil range: Late Devonian
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Subphylum: Vertebrata
Class: Placodermi
Infraclass: Tetrapodomorpha
Order: Ptyctoodntida
Family: Ptyctodontidae
Genus: Materpiscis Long et al. 2008
Species: M. attenboroughi Long et al. 2008
Materpiscis
Materpiscis (from the Latin meaning ‘mother fish’) is a genus of ptyctodotid placoderm from the Late Devonian (c. 380 million years old) Gogo Formation of Western Australia, described by John Long of Museum Victoria and colleagues. IT was about 25-30 cm long and had powerful crushing tooth plates to grind up its prey, possibly hard shelled invertebrates like clams or corals. Known from only one specimen, it is unique in having an unborn embryo present inside the mother fish, and with remarkable preservation of a mineralised placental feeding structure (umbilical cord). This make Materpiscis the oldest known vertebrate to show viviparity , or giving birth to live young. The species name, M. attenboroughi honours Sir David Attenborough who first drew attention to the significance of the Gogo fish sites in his 1979 series “Life on Earth” (episode 4).
The ptyctodontid fishes are the only group of placoderms to display sexual dimorphism, where males have clasping organs and females have smooth pelvic fin bases. It had long been suspected that they reproduced using internal fertilisation, but finding fossilised embryos inside both Materpiscis and in a similar form also from Gogo, Austroptyctodus, proved the inference was true.
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See also
Other fish found in fossils from the Devonian period:
Tiktaalik
Eusthenopteron
Panderichthys
Coelacanthimorpha
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References
Long, J. A., 1985, "A new osteolepidid fish from the Upper Devonian Gogo Formation of Western Australia", Recs. W. A. Mus. 12, 361–377.
Long, J. A. 1988, Late Devonian fishes from Gogo, Western Australia. Nat. Geog Research & Exploration 4: 436-450. Long, J. A. et al., 1997, "Osteology and functional morphology of the osteolepiform fish Gogonasus Long, 1985, from the Upper Devonian Gogo Formation, Western Australia", Recs. W. A. Mus. Suppl. 57, 1–89
Long, J. A. et al., 2006, "An exceptional Devonian fish from Australia sheds light on tetrapod origins", Nature 444, 199-202
Long, J. A. 2006. "Swimming in Stone -the amazing Gogo fossils of the Kimberley" Fremantle Arts Centre Press, Fremantle. 320pp. ISBN 1-921064-33-1
Rosen, D. E., Forey, P.L., Gardiner, B.G. & Patterson, C. 1981, Lungfishes, tetrapods, paleontology and plesiomorphy. Bull. Am. musm. Nat. Hist. 167 (4): 159-276.
Long, J.A., Trinajstic, K., Young, G.C. & Sende, T. 2008. Live birth in the Devonian period. Nature 453: 650-652
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External links
Ancient Gogonasus advances evolution, Museum Victoria.[1]
Photographs and x-ray micro-tomography animation of Gogonasus from ANU [2]
Gogonasus andrewsae by PZ Myers
Ancient Fish Fossil May Rewrite Story of Animal Evolution (National Geographic)
Livescience.com: "Discovery Points to Our Fishy Heritage." (Accessed 10/21/06)
Fox News: Primitive Fish Skeleton May Link Land, Sea Interview with Dr John Long, curator at the Museum of Victoria
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