The evolution of the brain and nervous system in animals has been traced back more than 400 million years, thanks to the examination of fossil remains of ancient lungfish.
In order to understand brain evolution of lungfishes, detailed 3D models of their skulls have been compared to the brains of their sisters.
According to the lead author, this can aid interpretation of the earliest tetrapods, which moved from water to land on four legs.
The discovery shows how the olfactory region of the fish is more plastic than the hindbrain and how it undergoes several taxa.
According to our discovery, the brains of lungfish have been evolving constantly throughout their 400 million-year history, but it suggests they have relied on their sense of smell rather than vision to navigate their environments. This fish uses sight more powerfully than other fish.
She says that understanding how lungfish brains have changed throughout their evolutionary history helps an understanding of what the brains of the first tetrapods would have looked like.
The researchers from Australia, with co-authors in the UK, Canada and Sweden, used powerful techniques to reconstruct brain models.
A senior author from the University of Edinburgh says the ongoing work is significant.
The brain of a fossil lungfish has very poor preservation potential and is not currently known in any other fossil lungfish.
Lingfish have been around for more than 400 million years and have provided unique insights into the condition of the earliest tetrapods as well as their own evolutionary history.
There are six lungfish with X-ray tomography, including Iowadipterus halli, Gogodipterus paddyensis, Pillararhynchus longi, and Orlovich. Australia, the US, Russia and Germany are where the fossils came from.
Six fossils and two taxa were subjected to a 12-taxon data set for analysis.
Our "fishy cousins" lungfish continue to help us understand how fish left the water 350 million years ago and became land animals. It's possible that some of their nervous system quirks remain in us.
The article is titled "Morphometric analysis of lungfish endocasts elucidates early dipnoan palaeoneurological evolution".
More information: Alice M Clement et al, Morphometric analysis of lungfish endocasts elucidates early dipnoan palaeoneurological evolution, eLife (2022). DOI: 10.7554/eLife.73461 Journal information: eLife
All Rights Reserved © 2024
