Fossil Armored Fish from China Bridges Primitive and Advanced Jawless Lineages
Paleontologists have identified a new species of armored jawless fish, Asioaspis brachyotus, from the Early Devonian period in Yunnan, China. This discovery provides further insight into the evolutionary link between primitive jawless fish and modern jawed vertebrates.
Why it matters
Understanding the evolutionary history of galeaspids helps scientists map the development of key biological traits like jaws and paired appendages in early vertebrates.
Paleontologists have described a new genus and species of polybranchiaspiform galeaspid fish from the Early Devonian of Yunnan, China.
Life restoration of Asioaspis brachyotus . Image credit: Zhang et al ., doi: 10.19615/j.cnki.2096-9899.260113.
The newly described fish, named Asioaspis brachyotus , lived in what is now southwestern China approximately 419 million years ago (Lochkovian stage of the Early Devonian epoch).
The species belongs to the Galeaspida , an extinct group of bony-headed, jawless fishes found only in China and northern Vietnam.
These creatures are more closely related to jawed vertebrates, including humans, than to living jawless fishes such as lampreys and hagfish.
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