Recently, Chinese scientists led an in-depth study of ancient fish fossils collected more than 400 million years ago from Changxing, Zhejiang and Qujing, Yunnan. It was confirmed that the fish blowholes evolved from the first pair of gills. This is also the scientific community's fossil evidence. For the first time, it has been revealed that the middle ear used by humans to hear originated from the gills used by fish to breathe.
This important achievement paper on the evolution of vertebrate paleontology, which solves a century-old scientific problem, was jointly organized by researcher Gai Zhikun of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (Institute of Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences), Zhu Min, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Philip Donoue, academician of the Royal Academy of Sciences of the United Kingdom. It was jointly completed by Philip CJ Donoghue and Per E. Ahlberg, academician of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and has been published in the international professional academic journal Frontiers of Ecology and Evolution.
The picture shows the fossil specimen of the broad turtle that was collected from Qujing, Yunnan, with gill silk imprints intact, displayed at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, on May 27.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Sun Zifa
Release time: 2022-05-29 17:56:49 【Editor: Li Peiyun】