Most placoderms have distinctive inner ear features, with a very large sac known as a vestibule placed in the center, separating all other components. Much to their surprise, the researchers found previously unseen areas inside the braincase that contain a critical pack of information: This ancient placoderm fish has an inner ear that resembles modern jawed vertebrates, including modern sharks and bony fishes, as well as the distant ancestors of humans. The fossils can even be 3D printed, without causing any harm to the extremely fragile fossils. These techniques use X-rays to look inside and digitally dissect fossils. The morphology of the brain cavity suggested it was closely related to primitive jawless fishes.Ī team of scientists from China, Australia, the UK and Sweden re-investigated these mysterious fossils using cutting-edge MicroCT scanning and digital reconstruction. Most excitingly, the fossil of Brindabellaspis included the braincase, a kind of bony box inside the head that housed the brain and sensory organs. He named the fish Brindabellaspis stensioi, and other people jokingly dubbed it "platypus fish" because of its long beak. Young found several fossils of a long-beaked fish, a type of placoderm, in the Burrinjuck limestones in Australia. The study was published in Current Biology on Jan 27.īack in 1960s, paleontologist Dr. LU Jing from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Next-to another sun! A galaxy to party in.New findings on the brain and inner ear cavity of a 400-million-year-old platypus-like fish cast light on the evolution of modern jawed vertebrates, according to a study led by Dr. "Already the Holocene? My how the time does fly! Seems like t'was but yesterday, when the Moon was nearby." Now here we are, upon the Moon. And chipped some stone and built some fires to warm the cave abode.
The trees were great, but it was late, so onto two we strode. The 'saurs became a little flock of ornithology. "Now that's a party!" we all sang, and went to mammals be. It turned the Moon a pretty blue, the Sun a shade of green. Then from a distant shore, We saw a comet hit the ground, the best I've ever seen. We'll use the oxygen we make! Come on, it will be fun!" As huge salt mountains melted down to spice the saltless seas, the dosado tectonic dance of plate activities, Trilobites now filled the sea, and oxygen the air, "What say we all crawl up on land? And have a picnic there!" "We'll bring amphibians and trees, and Oh, it will be fun! And bring some extra ozone to protect us from the Sun." So off we went, and partied on, from cynodont to 'saur.
Laurence Doyle of SETTI: When the Earth was young, and the Moon nearby, in a cometary sea, prokaryotic thoughts arose, what fun it is to be! "Lets rust the world!" we all agreed, "until the iron's done. Story Research: Duck-billed platypus: Primitive or not?ġ1/23/07 - The "implausible" platypus continues to surpriseĪ Cosmic Evolution By Dr. Story Reteller: April Holladay, Wonderquest, USA today
Storytellers: Ondine Evans and Anne Musser of The Australian Museum That's the origin of the word "monotreme": Mono – Greek for "one," trema – Greek for "hole." A simple, successful design. She has a single orifice for all systems: urinary, excretory, and reproductive. She waddles like a reptile with legs to the side rather underneath her body. Indeed she harkens back to an even earlier design - that of the mammal-like reptiles that predated the dinosaurs by 80 million years and lived in the late Carboniferous period, about 300 million years ago. The duckbill platypus is a current member of the ancient monotreme group. This creature's basic design, however, has endured for about 110 million years - one of the longest-lived successful body plans, say Ondine Evans and Anne Musser of The Australian Museum The champs with this good survival strategy are the egg-laying monotremes, a group that evolved about 110 million years ago in the mid Cretaceous period.
The duck-billed platypus takes true honors although the species has only been around about 100,000 years.