News tagged with fossil fishes

Before animals first walked on land, fish carried gene program for limbs

Genetic instructions for developing limbs and digits were present in primitive fish millions of years before their descendants first crawled on to land, researchers have discovered.

Biology / Biotechnology

created Jul 11, 2011 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (17) | comments 35 | with audio podcast

Study gives clues about carbon dioxide patterns at end of Ice Age

(PhysOrg.com) -- New University of Florida research puts to rest the mystery of where old carbon was stored during the last glacial period. It turns out it ended up in the icy waters of the Southern Ocean near Antarctica.

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Oct 25, 2010 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (13) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Dynasty of plankton-eating giants from Age of Dinosaurs revealed in new study

(PhysOrg.com) -- Giant plankton-eating fish filled the prehistoric seas for more than 100 million years before they were wiped out in the same event that killed off the dinosaurs, new fossil evidence claims.

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created Feb 18, 2010 | popularity 5 / 5 (13) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Japanese researchers film rare baby fish 'fossil'

Japanese marine researchers said Tuesday they had found and successfully filmed a young coelacanth -- a rare type of fish known as "a living fossil" -- in deep water off Indonesia.

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Nov 17, 2009 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (8) | comments 4

Why certain fishes went extinct 65 million years ago

Large size and a fast bite spelled doom for bony fishes during the last mass extinction 65 million years ago, according to a new study to be published March 31, 2009, in the Proceedings of the National Ac ...

Biology / Ecology

created Mar 26, 2009 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (12) | comments 1

Fossilised pregnant fish was one of the first animals to have sex

(PhysOrg.com) -- A pregnant fossil fish at the Natural History Museum in London has shed light on the possible origin of sex, according to a study published in Nature today by an international team includ ...

Biology /

created Feb 25, 2009 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (17) | comments 3

A new theory emerges for where some fish became four-limbed creatures

A small fish crawling on stumpy limbs from a shrinking desert pond is an icon of can-do spirit, emblematic of a leading theory for the evolutionary transition between fish and amphibians. This theorized image ...

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created Dec 27, 2011 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (8) | comments 6 | with audio podcast

Study of fish fossil shows that 'head-first' diversity drives vertebrate evolution

The history of evolution is periodically marked by explosions in biodiversity, as groups of species try out a wide range of shapes and sizes. With a new analysis of two such adaptive radiations in the fossil ...

Biology / Evolution

created Dec 20, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (6) | comments 8 | with audio podcast

Ocean acidification may directly harm fish: study

(PhysOrg.com) -- Fossil fuel combustion, and with it the release of heat-trapping carbon dioxide (CO2), is still growing globally. Beyond climate change, this is also causing the world’s “other ...

Space & Earth / Environment

created Dec 13, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (5) | comments 7 | with audio podcast

Getting inside the mind (and up the nose) of our ancient ancestors

(PhysOrg.com) -- Reorganisation of the brain and sense organs could be the key to the evolutionary success of vertebrates, one of the great puzzles in evolutionary biology, according to a paper by an international ...

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created Aug 17, 2011 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (8) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Ocean acidification leaves clownfish deaf to predators

(PhysOrg.com) -- Since the Industrial Revolution, over half of all the CO2 produced by burning fossil fuels has been absorbed by the ocean, making pH drop faster than any time in the last 650,000 years and ...

Biology / Ecology

created Jun 01, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 3 | with audio podcast

Rotten experiments help to create picture of our early ancestors

(PhysOrg.com) -- An innovative experiment at the University of Leicester that involved studying rotting fish has helped to create a clearer picture of what our early ancestors would have looked like.

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created Oct 12, 2010 | popularity 4.1 / 5 (8) | comments 5 | with audio podcast

Lake-bed trails tell ancient fish story

The wavy lines and squiggles etched into a slab of limestone found near Fossil Butte National Monument are prehistoric fish trails, made by Notogoneus osculus as it fed along a lake bottom, says Emory Univer ...

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created May 06, 2010 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (3) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Novel studies of decomposition shed new light on our earliest fossil ancestry (w/ Video)

Decaying corpses are usually the domain of forensic scientists, but palaeontologists have discovered that studying rotting fish sheds new light on our earliest ancestry.

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created Jan 31, 2010 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (11) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

New fossil tells how piranhas got their teeth

How did piranhas -- the legendary freshwater fish with the razor bite -- get their telltale teeth? Researchers from Argentina, the United States and Venezuela have uncovered the jawbone of a striking transitional ...

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created Jun 25, 2009 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (5) | comments 0