420 million year old 'armored' fish

Chinese scientists have discovered a rare fossil fragment of an "armored" fish, dating back 420 million years.

"Armored" fish may have thrived on Earth 420 million years ago. Photo: Plos.org.

A 20-centimeter fossil of the fish Sparalepis tingi found in China's Yunnan Province is attracting the attention of paleontologists. Named after the Persian Empire's Sparabara infantry,fish speciesThe scales resemble the shields that warriors carried into battle, according toRT.

For decades, this fossil has convinced the scientific community that jawed and vertebrate fish populations appeared globally during the Devonian period (419.2 million to 358.9 million years ago).

Research published on March 8 in the journal PLOS.One by a team of experts at Flinders University, Australia and the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology, China, shows that the explosion of jawed and vertebrate fish actually began tens of millions of years earlier than previously thought.

The Sparalepis fossils suggest that the fish explosion may have occurred as early as the Silurian period (443.7 to 419.2 million years ago). The location of the fossils is also significant, prompting paleontologists to focus more on eastern China. The fossils also point to an early diversification of fish on Earth, filling in a morphological gap that scientists have been trying to fill for years.

According to VNE