The braincase and jaws of a Devonian ‘acanthodian’ and modern gnathostome origins

Martin D. Brazeau ()
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Martin D. Brazeau: Evolutionary Biology Centre, Uppsala University, Norbyvägen 18A, SE-752 36 Uppsala, Sweden

Nature, 2009, vol. 457, issue 7227, 305-308

Abstract: A false fishy trail? Acanthodians are long-extinct fossil fish that stand close to the divergence of cartilaginous and bony fishes. Their morphology has the potential to reveal much about the early evolution of jawed vertebrates. The problem is that their anatomy is poorly known, most of it confined to Acanthodes, a probably unrepresentative genus that lived in the Permian, late in acanthodian history. Martin Brazeau now presents the first detailed description of the braincase of Ptomacanthus, an acanthodian that lived in the Early Devonian acanthodian heyday, about 415 million years ago. The results show that acanthodians were probably not a natural group: Ptomacanthus was either a very early relative of sharks, or close to the common ancestry of all modern jawed vertebrates.

Date: 2009
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DOI: 10.1038/nature07436

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