CANBERRA, July 12 (Xinhua) — A new Australian-led study has uncovered how ancient lungfish adapted to life on land, offering key insights into vertebrate evolution.
Flinders University researchers in South Australia and international collaborators used advanced 3D technology to study 380-million-year-old lungfish jaws from Western Australia’s Gogo fossil field.
Scientists used 3D finite element modeling, a technique commonly used in engineering, to analyze fossilized lungfish jaws, revealing how different species co-existed in Devonian “Age of Fishes” reef ecosystems, according to a Flinders University statement released on Friday.
Lungfish are the closest living fish relatives of tetrapods, the group that includes all four-limbed vertebrates such as humans, “which means they are our closest ‘fishy’ relatives,” said the study’s corresponding author Alice Clement from Flinders University.
The Gogo Formation, which exhibits exceptional preservation of a Devonian reef community, has revealed the greatest lungfish diversity ever, with 11 species displaying varied skull and jaw shapes. For the first time, their biomechanical functions have been reconstructed, uncovering details of their diet and predatory abilities, said the study published in the journal iScience.
“We’re slowly teasing apart the details of how the bodies and lifestyles of these animals changed, as they moved from being fish that lived in water, to becoming tetrapods that moved about on land,” said Clement.
The study’s dataset provides the most detailed fossil fish bite analysis to date, revealing diverse feeding adaptations and how different Gogo lungfish species shared the same environment by specializing in different foods or feeding strategies. ■