Credit: IVPP
New findings on the brain and inner ear cavity of a 400-million-year-old platypus-like fish cast light on the evolution of modern jawed vertebrates, according to a study led by Dr. ZHU Youan and Dr. LU Jing from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The study was published in
Current Biology on Jan 27.
Back in 1960s, Paleontologist Dr. Gavin C. Young found several fossils of a long-beaked fish, a type of placoderm, in the Burrinjuck limestones in Australia. He named the fish
Brindabellaspis stensioi, and other people jokingly dubbed it "platypus fish" because of its long beak.