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The discovery of remains of a lobe-finned fish, excavated by hand by Albany Museum and Rhodes University's Dr Rob Gess, was published in a paper this week.
A study published Wednesday introduced us to a new species of giant fish that may have eaten our human ancestors.
Researchers in South Africa have unearthed 360 million-year-old fossils belonging to a newly described voracious fish species that preyed on our ancestors.
Lampreys are blood-sucking predatory fish. The earliest ancestors of all vertebrates, including ourselves, were thought to resemble their worm-like babies. Now, recently discovered fossils have overturned that theory, raising new questions about what our ancestors were really like.
Local fossils shake up our tree of life An astonishing discovery of baby lamprey fossils just outside Makhanda will force a major rethink of the evolutionary tree that gave rise to all vertebrates including our own species – Homo sapiens. Well-known local palaeontologist, Dr Rob Gess, found the fossils in 360-million-year-old black shale deposits from the Waterloo Farm bordering the N2 highway. The lamprey fossils were in various stages of development from hatchling to adult when they died. Remarkably, the smallest preserved individual, barely 15mm in length, still carried a yolk sac...