Remember we were discussing how current Darwinian evolution theory would not be challenged even if a modern rabbit were found back in the 550 mya Cambrian era (and Darwin followers in the combox appeared to agree).
Hippety hop. A 419 mya jawed vertebrate.
The ancestors of modern jawed vertebrates are commonly portrayed as fishes with a shark-like appearance. But a stunning fossil discovery from China puts a new face on the original jawed vertebrate. [US$18 paywall]
National Geographic News reports*,
“Entelognathus primordialis is one of the earliest, and certainly the most primitive, fossil fish that has the same jawbones as modern bony fishes and land vertebrates including ourselves,” said study co-author Min Zhu of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing.
…
But in the new fossil, found in China, has a distinctive three-bone system still used by chewing vertebrates today: a lower jawbone called the dentary and two upper jaw bones called the premaxilla (holding the front teeth) and the maxilla (holding the canine and cheek teeth).
“The exciting thing about this fossil is that when you look at the top of it, it looks like a placoderm, but when you look at the side of the fish and the structure of the jaw, it doesn’t look like any placoderm that we know of,” Friedman said.
“This tends to suggest the exciting possibility that these jawbones evolved way deep down in the lineage, so these features we used to hold as being unique to bony fishes may not be so unique.”
In other words, less evolution and more stasis.
The fish seems to lave lived at the end of the Silurian period, 443 mya to 417 mya.
*Reports it, that is, under the curious title,
”Fish Fossil Has Oldest Known Face, May Influence Evolution“
Influence evolution? Baby, if they found it back then, it IS evolution. Unless, of course, you mean Evolution, the Religion. In other words, the fish may shake up your dogmatics a bit, but whose problem is that, besides yours, at this point?
Fish guy, yer gettin’ ta be a rabbit with me.