Spiny chondrichthyan from the lower Silurian of South China

Plamen S. Andreev, Ivan J. Sansom, Qiang Li, Wenjin Zhao, Jianhua Wang, Chun-Chieh Wang, Lijian Peng, Liantao Jia, Tuo Qiao and Min Zhu ()
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Plamen S. Andreev: Qujing Normal University
Ivan J. Sansom: University of Birmingham
Qiang Li: Qujing Normal University
Wenjin Zhao: Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS)
Jianhua Wang: Qujing Normal University
Chun-Chieh Wang: National Synchrotron Radiation Research Center
Lijian Peng: Qujing Normal University
Liantao Jia: Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS)
Tuo Qiao: Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS)
Min Zhu: Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS)

Nature, 2022, vol. 609, issue 7929, 969-974

Abstract: Abstract Modern representatives of chondrichthyans (cartilaginous fishes) and osteichthyans (bony fishes and tetrapods) have contrasting skeletal anatomies and developmental trajectories1–4 that underscore the distant evolutionary split5–7 of the two clades. Recent work on upper Silurian and Devonian jawed vertebrates7–10 has revealed similar skeletal conditions that blur the conventional distinctions between osteichthyans, chondrichthyans and their jawed gnathostome ancestors. Here we describe the remains (dermal plates, scales and fin spines) of a chondrichthyan, Fanjingshania renovata gen. et sp. nov., from the lower Silurian of China that pre-date the earliest articulated fossils of jawed vertebrates10–12. Fanjingshania possesses dermal shoulder girdle plates and a complement of fin spines that have a striking anatomical similarity to those recorded in a subset of stem chondrichthyans5,7,13 (climatiid ‘acanthodians’14). Uniquely among chondrichthyans, however, it demonstrates osteichthyan-like resorptive shedding of scale odontodes (dermal teeth) and an absence of odontogenic tissues in its spines. Our results identify independent acquisition of these conditions in the chondrichthyan stem group, adding Fanjingshania to an increasing number of taxa7,15 nested within conventionally defined acanthodians16. The discovery of Fanjingshania provides the strongest support yet for a proposed7 early Silurian radiation of jawed vertebrates before their widespread appearance5 in the fossil record in the Lower Devonian series.

Date: 2022
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DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-05233-8

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