PermeateFree said:
For those with backbone read further.
https://newatlas.com/oldest-bone-aspidin-fish-fossil/55710
> You’ve probably never really wondered where your skeleton came from, but that has puzzled paleontologists for over a century. In particular the question mark was hovering over the skeletons of a strange, ancient fish family called heterostracan, but now UK scientists say they’ve cracked it, declaring the 400 million-year-old fossils to be the oldest examples of bone ever found.
This article is more interesting than the title exists. There are plenty of Devonian fishes, so many that the Devonian is called the age of fishes. But …
> The skeletons of modern vertebrates are made up of bone, cartilage, dentine and enamel. Structures in this fossil aren’t made up of any of the four modern skeletal tissue types.
That’s the key statement.
> Synchrotron Tomography, a detailed form of CT scan that uses very high energy X-rays. The researchers found that the spaces had a linear shape, which leaves only one option – aspidin is acellulaSynchrotron Tomography, a detailed form of CT scan that uses very high energy X-rays. The researchers found that the spaces had a linear shape, which they say leaves only one option – the skeleton is made from a primitive type of bone that doesn’t contain cells, making it the earliest evidence of bone found so far in the fossil record.
I wonder how many other fossil fish have a similar acellular bone? Time to try out the 380 million year old Gogo fossil fish in the Australia Synchrotron perhaps?
