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Fossil Meat Found in 380-Million-Year-Old Fish
National Geographic News ^ | 2/12/07 | Sean Markey

Posted on 02/12/2007 3:05:44 PM PST by LibWhacker

Australian scientists say they have found morsels of fossilized muscle—the oldest vertebrate tissue ever known—in the remains of two fish that lived 380 to 384 million years ago.

Unearthed in western Australia 20 years ago, the specimens belong to two species of an extinct group of primitive, armored fish known as placoderms (map of Australia).

The fish's remarkably well-preserved soft tissues include bundles of muscle cells, blood vessels, and nerve cells. They were found during recent electron microscope scans, the research team reported last week in the British journal Biology Letters.

Fossilized muscle is quite rare, and the new finds are even more exceptional, because they weren't flattened but rather preserved with their three-dimensional shape intact, the researchers say. (Related: "Fossils Yield 10-Million-Year-Old Bone Marrow -- A First" [July 25, 2006].)

The remains shed light on the evolution of placoderms, which ruled the world's oceans, rivers, and lakes for 70 million years until they died out about 360 million years ago.

"On the evolutionary tree, they're the first jawed animal, and we're the last. So they're our first jawed ancestors," said lead study author Kate Trinajstic, a paleontologist at the University of Western Australia.

"Gothic Monsters"

The fossil fish's muscle tissue grew in W-shaped blocks—a trait also seen in lampreys, a modern-day remnant of other primitive fish—the scans revealed. (Related: "Bloodsucking Lamprey Found to Be 'Living Fossil'" [October 25, 2006].)

"There has been some discussion as to whether or not placoderms were the most primitive fish or whether sharks were more primitive," Trinajstic said.

"These muscles show us that placoderms were the most primitive fishes and the most primitive jawed fishes."

Ranging in length from 6 inches to 6 feet (15 to 180 centimeters), placoderms lacked bony, internal skeletons and were put together a bit like lobsters.

The fish had thick plates that interlocked like suits of armor over their heads and bodies, while sharklike tails sprouted from their backs.

Heavy jaws added to the placoderms' thuggish appearance, leading paleontologist John Long of Museum Victoria to compare the animals to "some gothic monster—pretty awful and pretty strange."

Fishy Forebears

Long, a National Geographic Society grant recipient, wrote Swimming in Stone, a recent book on placoderms found in Western Australia's Gogo formation. (National Geographic News is part of the National Geographic Society.)

The site of an ancient barrier reef, the Gogo formation has yielded a rich trove of well-preserved, three-dimensional marine fossils, including 25 placoderm species.

During an expedition to the area in 1986, Long found the original, 380-million-year-old fossils of a placoderm fish called Gogonasus—remarkable for its many features resembling those found on modern land animals. (Related story: "Ancient Fish Fossil May Rewrite Story of Animal Evolution" [October 18, 2006].)

He says the Gogonasus fish fossils "changed and revolutionized" our understanding of evolution.

Most people have the "Hollywood view of evolution," in which a fish morphs into an amphibian, followed by a reptile, then a mammal, then a primate, and finally a human, he said.

"But when we look at the Gogo fish, we see that so much of the human body plan is pushed back into the fishes. So that the origin of all our anatomical systems—90 percent of it—happened within fishes," he said.

"After the fishes left the sea and invaded the land, the rest was really fine-tuning of an existing pattern."


TOPICS: Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: 380millionyearold; fish; fossil; godsgravesglyphs; meat; placoderms
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1 posted on 02/12/2007 3:05:47 PM PST by LibWhacker
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To: LibWhacker

Bush's fault.


2 posted on 02/12/2007 3:06:21 PM PST by Buck W. (If you push something hard enough, it will fall over.)
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To: LibWhacker
Fossil Meat Found in 380-Million-Year-Old Fish

Anybody got a grill?

3 posted on 02/12/2007 3:08:09 PM PST by lowbridge ("The mainstream media IS the Democrat Party". - Rush Limbaugh)
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To: LibWhacker

I still don't buy the cross species evolution theory.


4 posted on 02/12/2007 3:09:16 PM PST by taxcontrol
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To: LibWhacker

The headline reads like a bad fast food incident.


5 posted on 02/12/2007 3:09:58 PM PST by kinoxi
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To: Buck W.

This is how they'll find Pelosi in 300 million years. With conservative meat in her stomach. Hillary's will be full of serpants.


6 posted on 02/12/2007 3:10:01 PM PST by albie
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To: LibWhacker

I've got some canned salmon in the pantry that's almost that old.


7 posted on 02/12/2007 3:10:13 PM PST by Larry Lucido
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To: LibWhacker

Wow, they found a fish that was celebrating 380-millionth birthday?


8 posted on 02/12/2007 3:11:06 PM PST by delacoert
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To: LibWhacker
Heavy jaws added to the placoderms' thuggish appearance

Hillary's direct ancestor, eh?

9 posted on 02/12/2007 3:12:41 PM PST by KellyAdmirer
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To: LibWhacker

They do have a sci-fi appearance:

http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/vertebrates/basalfish/placodermi.html


10 posted on 02/12/2007 3:16:30 PM PST by Yardstick
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To: kinoxi

Fossil Meat?
I married mine!


11 posted on 02/12/2007 3:16:32 PM PST by billorites (freepo ergo sum)
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To: billorites

He earned his money and he spent it.


12 posted on 02/12/2007 3:18:52 PM PST by kinoxi
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To: taxcontrol

"I still don't buy the cross species evolution theory."

I'm curious, can you expand on what you mean?


13 posted on 02/12/2007 3:19:15 PM PST by Caramelgal (Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead.)
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To: LibWhacker
they're the first jawed animal, and we're the last. So they're our first jawed ancestors

This is loose logic.

14 posted on 02/12/2007 3:22:48 PM PST by RightWhale (300 miles north of Big Wild Life)
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To: LibWhacker

Eastmanosteus calliaspis is one of two fossil fish species in which ancient but well-preserved soft tissue has been found.

The fossilized muscle cells, blood vessels, and nerve cells shed light on an important group of fish that were the evolutionary precursors of large land animals.

15 posted on 02/12/2007 3:22:50 PM PST by savedbygrace (SECURE THE BORDERS FIRST (I'M YELLING ON PURPOSE))
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To: LibWhacker

Mmmmmmmmmmm, Jerky.


16 posted on 02/12/2007 3:25:15 PM PST by Doomonyou (Let them eat lead.)
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To: albie
It DOES look a little like James Carville, don't it?


17 posted on 02/12/2007 3:37:10 PM PST by Viking2002 (Islam is to Western Civilization what ticks are to a dog.)
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To: Caramelgal
Evolution has 6 definitions.

I will focus on only two of those definitions.

Evolution within a species that produces many varieties. For example, Dogs ... there are lots of varieties of dogs. I will agree that evolution happens WITHIN a species.

The other type of evolution, one species turning into another species... a cow giving offspring to a dog... does NOT happen. So evolution that crosses from one species to another is what I do not believe happens.

For more information, go to www.drdino.com
18 posted on 02/12/2007 3:39:20 PM PST by taxcontrol
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To: LibWhacker

So what we have here is the world's oldest confirmed sushi eater, is that it?


19 posted on 02/12/2007 3:43:17 PM PST by UncleSamUSA (the land of the free and the home of the brave)
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To: taxcontrol

> The other type of evolution, one species turning into
> another species... a cow giving offspring to a dog...
> does NOT happen.

That is a complete misrepresentation of the theory of evolution.

In fact, if a cow ever did give birth to a dog, it would go a long way towards demonstrating the mystical, supernatural suchwhat that some people would like to propose as an alternative to evolution.

Now, you've admitted that small changes occur. That's good. It's a start.

You deny that the small changes build over large amounts of time into large changes.

Can you propose a mechanism by which they're prevented from doing so?


20 posted on 02/12/2007 3:43:24 PM PST by voltaires_zit
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