rhamphotheca:423-Million-Year-Old Fish Was Once Earth’s Largest Vertebrateby Tia GhoseScientists hav
rhamphotheca:423-Million-Year-Old Fish Was Once Earth’s Largest Vertebrateby Tia GhoseScientists have unearthed a fossilized fish that was once the biggest vertebrate of its day.The predatory sea creature, dubbed Megamastax amblyodus, which means “big mouth, blunt teeth,” prowled the oceans about 423 million years ago and used its flat teeth for crushing the shells of its slow-moving, hard-shelled prey.The new species ruled the seas during a period known as the Devonian, or the Age of Fish, which occurred between 416 million and 358 million years ago. The Devonian period saw the rise of some of Earth’s largest vertebrate predators, including the terrifying Dunkleosteus, a massive predatory fish that could grow to be 33 ft (10 m) long. But most of the fossil vertebrates unearthed from the early Devonian, or what’s known as the Silurian period, were relatively small, with the largest uncovered fossil being just 14 inches (35 cm) long…(read more: Live Science)illustration by Brian Choo; photo by Min ZhuSource: Scientific Reports, DOI: 10.1038/srep05242 -- source link