Scientists in China have found what they believe to be the earliest known animal with a face - a fish that existed about 419 million years ago, which might be the missing piece in the puzzle of vertebrate history.
An international team found the fossil in China's Xiaoxiang Reservoir, located in China's south-central region, according to a report published in the journal Nature on Thursday. According to Reuters, the fish's remains indicate that this creature is the most primitive vertebrate found to date with a modern jaw - this fish even bore teeth similar to humans.
"This finally solves an age-old problem about the origin of modern fishes," John Long, a professor of paleontology at Flinders University in Adelaide told Reuters. Long was not part of the team of scientists that discovered the fossil.
Scientists were shocked to see that the fish, Entelognathus primodialis, was an armored creature that existed in the now extinct placoderm family. The fish with a complex skull makeup and a set jaw's existence went unknown until now. The discovery of this fish dispelled previous theories that osteichthyes, or modern vertebrates with bony skeletons, evolved from an animal much like a shark that had a bone makeup of cartilage.
Entelognathus primodialis gives a piece to the evolutionary puzzle that shows a bony skeleton was the model for both bony vertebrates and cartilaginous ones as well, Reuters reported.
"We now know that ancient armored placoderms gave rise to the modern fish fauna as we know it," Long stated. He called this finding "the most exciting news in palaeontology since Archaeopteryx or Lucy," making reference to two game-changing fossil discoveries that clarified the public's understanding of the evolution to birds and humans.
The scientific journal Nature did not specify when the team of scientists first discovered the fossil.
