This is one mighty old fish!

fullofdoubtnow

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/19102006/323/fossil-fish-fills-evolutionary-gap.html

Fossil fish fills evolutionary gap

Thursday October 19, 07:34 AM

Click to enlarge photo

SYDNEY (AFP) - A 380 million-year-old fossil has filled a gap in understanding how fish evolved into the first land animals, Australian scientists say.

The perfectly preserved skeleton has revealed that fish developed features characteristic of land animals much earlier than once thought, said lead researcher John Long of Australia's Museum Victoria.

"We've got a fish from the Devonian period about 380 million years ago and preserved in three-dimensional stunning perfection," Long told

"It has revealed a whole suite of characters that link it to the higher land animals or tetrapods, so it's filling in a blank in evolution we didn't know about before."

The fossil of the Gogonasus fish, found in the remote Kimberley region of Western Australia at a site of a former major coral reef, shows the skull had large holes for breathing through the top of the head.

It also had muscular front fins with a well-formed humerus, ulna and radius -- the same bones found in the human arm, the researchers said.

"The degree to which these features resemble the earliest four-legged land animals makes Gogonasus a new model in the picture of how fishes evolved into land animals.

"Gogonasus is the missing clue in vertebrate evolution -- the world's first complete perfect skeleton of the kinds of fishes that gave rise to the first land animals."

The transition from a fish living in water to an air-breathing land animal with arms and legs was one of the most dramatic transitions in the history of evolution and many unsolved questions remained, Long said.

Earlier this year, scientists reported the discovery of Tiktaalik roseae, a 375 million-year-old species of fish seen as the missing link in the shift from water to land animals.

While Tiktaalik had a skull that was identical to an amphibian, Long said Gogonasus looks much more like a fish.

"I like to say it's a wolf in sheep's clothing. It's showing that evolution isn't as straightforward as we'd like to think."

The fossil was unveiled at the Melbourne Museum Thursday and will remain on display for a month.

These guys seem pretty excited about this find, what do you all think?

Butters

gaiagirl

Sounds as if it is perhaps an ancestor to the line which later gave rise to Acanthostega (still very fishlike, but with somewhat more developed limbs), and Ichthyostega (essentially an early salamander, mostly aquatic). Of course, some creationist is certain to ask "but where is the missing link between this fossil and Acanthostega?"

Gill

Sould this finally be evidence of a missing link?

Though so far there has been plenty of evidence of micro evolution, there has not been found any evidence of species change that can be verified.

As soon as missing links turn up, and real missing links that can't be doubted, then that really will be something!

I'm ready to listen to evidence, either way.

jaguarbass

While I am not a JW. I think science is science and when they speak of the science of evolution, they are speaking of another religion. I have no faith that man can back date anything millions of years not even thousands of years. These scientist like the JW's are grasping at straws. They have a theory and they are trying to find facts and twist facts to support it. In my mind the earth is however old it is. I just dont have faith that men at this time have a way back machine that can measure millions of years in the past.

Satanus

It's a missing link that isn't missing anymore. As darwin predicted many missing links have been found. As someone said, all are links in the evolutionary tree.

S

Ps, about the dates, i have a hard time imagining a million yrs. Anything past 10,000 yrs, and i start getting dizzy. Not that i'm saying that the fish isn't that old.

kid-A

"They have a theory and they are trying to find facts and twist facts to support it."

Twisting facts? I wonder what facts have been twisted here? Do you have any evidence to back up your rather bold anti-science and anti-intellectual rhetoric or are you just talking out or your ass like most creationists? Can you cite some published literature that backs your remarkable claims that evolutionary scientists are "twisting" facts to suit a theory? Can you even provide a 'definition' of what constitutes a scientific theory? I doubt it.

Once you have obtained your doctoral degree in molecular biology, geology, anthropology or geological physics perhaps you can provide a critique based upon evidence instead of silly emotional recriminations. Until that day, comments such as these from those with no knowledge, training or skills in the fields of evolutionary science are meaningless tripe.