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Article: Waking Up to the Dawn of Vertebrates.(fossil remains of earliest know fish found in China)(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- Science News
- Article date:
- November 6, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 Science Service, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Paleontologists have long regarded vertebrates as latecomers who straggled into evolutionary history after much of the initial sound and fury had fizzled. Chinese paleontologists, however, have discovered fossils of two fish that push the origin of vertebrates back to the riotous biological bash when almost all other animal groups emerged in the geologic record.
Preserved in 530-million-year-old rocks from Yunnan province, the paper clip-size impressions record the earliest known fish, which predate the next-oldest vertebrates by at least 30 million years.
The fossil finds, while not totally unexpected, thrill paleontologists who despaired of ever ...