Jakarta – Paleontologists in China discovered fossils of ancient fish predators from the Jurassic era. The type of fossil found is a jawless fish which is also called a lamprey.
Collect detikEdu, its shape is like an eel. The difference is, lampreys have a disc-shaped mouth with very sharp teeth. Lampreys are known as fierce predators.
“Living lampreys are always referred to as water vampires, but their ancestors were probably flesh eaters,” said paleontologist Feixiang Wu, quoted by the Smithsonian, as quoted from detikEdu.
The findings, which have been published in Nature Communications, consist of fossils of two species of lamprey fish that are 160 million years old. A pair of lamprey species analyzed by researchers, one of which was found in northern China, was 23 inches long and is the largest lamprey fossil to date.
The experts named it as Yanliaomyzon occisor with the word ‘occisor’ which means killer from Latin. Meanwhile, the small species is named Yanliaomyzon ingensdenteswith the meaning of big teeth.
The fossils found were in good condition. Scientists can still observe the structure of its teeth and oral discs. “There are no other lamprey fossils from the dinosaur era that have mouths that have survived so well,” said Tetsuto Miyashita, a paleobiologist.
This newly discovered fossil provides a bridge between lamprey species from the Jurassic period and the 31 species that still survive today. The oldest known lamprey fossils come from the Paleozoic era, approximately 360 million years ago.
Meanwhile, the newly discovered modern lamprey fossil likely came from the Southern Hemisphere during the Late Cretaceous period, which is around 100.5 million to 66 million years ago.
You are Predator Sadis
Known as predators, lampreys experience a life cycle that goes through three stages of metamorphosis. This fish is also classified as a parasitic lamprey and has a fairly sadistic way of looking for food.
Lampreys use their disc-shaped mouths with sharp teeth to latch onto prey and suck their blood. Fossil discoveries in China show that lampreys are not only blood-seekers, but also meat eaters.
According to Riley Black in National Geographic, the tooth structure of fossil lampreys has the ability to gouge the flesh of its prey, like an ice cream scoop. In one of the fossils, signs of bone fragments were even found in its stomach, indicating that the lamprey’s bite was so strong that it could penetrate the bones of the prey’s skeleton.
This article was published on detikEdu with the title Ancient Flesh-Eating Fish Fossil Found in China, Lived 160 Million Years Ago.
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2023-11-12 16:00:48
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