Chinese and Canadian scientists have announced they've discovered a complete fossil of a new species of osteoglossid fish, Scleropages sinensis species nova, from the Early Eocene period (54 to 48 million years ago) in the Xiawanpu Formation in Hunan province and the Yangxi Formation in Hubei province, central China, according to Vertebrata PalAsiatica. Read more
420 million-year-old fish fossil found in SW China
The fossil of an ancient fish species dating back to 420 million years ago was found recently by Chinese scientists in Qujing city of Yunnan province, Xinhua News Agency reports. The fish, called Sparalepis tingi, is about 20 centimeters long, and has unusual scales like a suit of armor. It shows that the earth may have entered the "Age of Fishes" in the latter part of the Silurian Period (443.7 - 419.2 million years ago), instead of the popularly accepted Devonian Period (419.2 - 358.9 million years ago). Read more
Dinosaur-era 'swordfish' discovered in outback Australia
"Extremely rare" fossils from a swordfish-like creature which lived 100 million years ago have been discovered in the Australian outback. Two families on holiday unearthed the prehistoric predator at a free fossil-finding site in north-west Queensland. The remains are thought to be from the Australopachycormus hurleyi, a 3m-long ray-finned fish with a pointed snout. Read more
An international team of researchers says a fish called Microbrachius dicki is the first-known animal to stop reproducing by spawning and instead mate by having sex. The primitive bony fish, which was about 8cm long, lived in ancient lakes about 385 million years ago in what is now Scotland. Read more
A team of researchers from Canada and Scotland has shown that the prehistoric fish known as Leedsichthys problematicus was the largest bony fish to ever swim the oceans, capable of growing over 16 metres in length. Leedsichthys problematicus was a large plankton-eating fish that existed over 165 million years ago, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth.
A paleontological expedition to the Tugen Hills in Kenya, led by LMUs Professor Bettina Reichenbacher, has discovered assemblages of fossil fish at eight previously unexplored localities. Read more
New flying fish fossils found in China provide the earliest evidence of vertebrate over-water gliding strategy. Chinese researchers have tracked the "exceptionally well-preserved fossils" to the Middle Triassic of China (235-242 million years ago). The Triassic period saw the re-establishment of ecosystems after the Permian mass extinction. The fossils represent new evidence that marine ecosystems re-established more quickly than previously thought. Read more
Guang-Hui Xu of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing and his team have found fossils of a new flying fish species from the Middle Triassic period, which began 247 million years ago (Proceedings of the Royal Society B, DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2012.2261). Previously the oldest flying fish fossils were from the Late Triassic, which began around 230 million years ago, and were unearthed in Austria and Italy. Read more
100 million-year-old coelacanth discovered in Texas is new fish species from Cretaceous
A new species of coelacanth fish has been discovered in Texas. Pieces of tiny fossil skull found in Fort Worth have been identified as 100 million-year-old coelacanth bones, according to palaeontologist John F. Graf, Southern Methodist University, Dallas. The coelacanth has one of the longest lineages - 400 million years - of any animal. It is the fish most closely related to vertebrates, including humans. Read more
The ancient ocean was a frightening place. But the emergence of the armoured placoderm fish would have made it even more terrifying. These fish were no great whites - some werent much bigger than a goldfish. But they were some of the first vertebrates to have jaws, and new research shows that they were probably the first to brandish teeth as well. Read more