Live birth in the Devonian period

John A. Long (), Kate Trinajstic, Gavin C. Young and Tim Senden
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John A. Long: Museum Victoria, Melbourne, PO Box 666, Melbourne 3001, Australia
Kate Trinajstic: School of Earth and Geographical Sciences, The University of Western Australia, Perth 6009, Western Australia, Australia
Gavin C. Young: Research School of Earth Sciences, The Australian National University
Tim Senden: Research School of Physical Sciences and Engineering, The Australian National University

Nature, 2008, vol. 453, issue 7195, 650-652

Abstract: Vertebrate evolution: A live birth in the Devonian The placoderms, now long extinct, were a large and diverse group of fishes, thought to be the most primitive known vertebrates with jaws. Not so primitive, however, that they could not have given birth to live young. A remarkable fossil from the Late Devonian Gogo Formation of Australia, about 380 million years old, represents a new species of placoderm, preserved in the act of giving birth. A single, large embryo is connected to the adult by a mineralized remnant of an umbilical cord. This is the oldest known vertebrate live birth, and reveals reproductive biology comparable to that of some modern sharks and rays.

Date: 2008
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DOI: 10.1038/nature06966

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