Reconstruction of an other Devonian Pisces has revealed a bill like a platypus , probably used for similar purposes . The discovery surprised palaeontologists because the fish is so different from everything else we ’ve chance from the era . It intimate fishes were much more specialise ahead of time on in their evolution than previously call back .
In 1980Dr Gavin Youngof the Australian National University see a partial skeleton of a new specie at Lake Burrinjuck in New South Wales . He mention itBrindabellaspis stensioiafter the nearby Brindabella mountain range , but the fossil was lack what prove to be the really interesting share . Young has since found other specimens from the same species andDr Benedict King , then at Flinders University , put them together to reconstructBrindabellaspis .
“ This was one strange - looking Pisces , ” King say in astatement . “ The eyes were on top of the nous , and the nostrils come out of the eye sockets . There was this longsighted neb at the front , and the jaws were positioned very far forrard . ”
InRoyal Society Open ScienceKing revealed that the farseeing bill contained an in advance sensorial system . “ We imagine it used the bill to search for quarry , somewhat like a platypus , while the eyes on top of the capitulum looked out for peril from above,”saidProfessorJohn Long , who co - authored the paper and manage King ’s PhD.
King ’s PhD was onelectric centripetal systems , like the ones duck-billed platypus and sharks possess . Long told IFLScience they ab initio think the bill might have been yet another example of this . However , King could encounter no grounds of anything resembling electric sensor . alternatively , the authors conclude the bill housed a modified kind of the pressure detector system that other fishes have , with two tubes run down the snout and restrictions on the sensory canal that in all probability allowed it to sense movements of quarry .
On the other side of Australia , the Gogo deposits have astounded paleontologist with former fish so well preserved they have been discover as “ swim in Harlan Fiske Stone ” . The saving at Lake Burrinjuck is not quite as honorable , but Long told IFLScience these deposits are even more authoritative because at 405 million age old they precede Gogo by more than 20 million geezerhood .
This signify the site preserves the Old example we have of a tropic reef hosting diverse jawed Pisces suggest – then as now – these were what Youngcalled“hotspots for phylogeny ” , rich in the placoderms that were the dominant fish of the day . “ We have slightly early examples but they are isolated bits , ” Long said . So far 70 species have been found from this location alone , but none likeBrindabellaspis . “ It ’s really strange to encounter something that is so specialised so betimes , ” Long said . We still have n’t line up intact mouthparts , however , so we are for the most part guessing its diet .
