Study of fossils shows prehistoric fish had sex

AP on Yahoo ^ | 2/25/09 | Michael Casey - ap

[NormsRevenge]

BANGKOK, Thailand – The fossilized remains of two pregnant fish indicate that sex as we know it — fertilization of eggs inside a female — took place as much as 30 million years earlier than previously thought, researchers said Thursday.

Scientists from Australia and Britain studying 380 million-year-old fossils of the armored placoderm fish, or Incisoscutum richiei, said they were initially confused when they realized that the two fish were carrying embryos. They originally thought the fish laid their eggs before fertilization.

"Once we found embryos in this group, we knew they had internal fertilization. But how the hell are they doing it?" said John Long, the head of sciences at the Museum Victoria in Melbourne who wrote a paper on the discovery that appeared in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.

The answer came when the scientists re-examined the pelvis of the male placoderm, armed with the new information about fertilization.

[SunkenCiv]

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