Jakarta –
Paleontologists in China have discovered fossils of ancient fish predators from the Jurassic period. This fish is a type of jawless fish which is often called lamprey.
Physically, lamprey fish have a shape similar to eels. The difference is, lamprey fish have a disc-shaped mouth with very sharp teeth. This fish is also known as a fierce predator.
“Living lampreys are always referred to as water vampires, but their ancestors were probably flesh-eaters,” said paleontologist Feixiang Wu, quoted from Smithsonian.
The findings have been published in Nature CommunicationThese are fossils of two species of lamprey fish that are 160 million years old.
The Largest and Oldest Lamprey
A pair of lamprey species analyzed by researchers, one of which was found in northern China, was 23 inches long and is the largest lamprey fossil to date.
Experts named it Yanliaomyzon occisor with the word ‘occisor’ meaning killer from Latin. Meanwhile, the small species is called Yanliaomyzon ingensdentes, which means big teeth.
The fossils were found in such good condition that experts can still observe the structure of the teeth and mouth discs.
“There are no other lamprey fossils from the dinosaur era that have mouths that have survived so well,” said Tetsuto Miyashita, a paleobiologist.
This newly discovered fossil provides a bridge between lamprey species from the Jurassic period and the 31 species that still survive today.
The oldest known lamprey fossils come from the Paleozoic era, approximately 360 million years ago.
Meanwhile, the newly discovered modern lamprey fossil likely came from the Southern Hemisphere during the Late Cretaceous period, which is around 100.5 million to 66 million years ago.
The Sadistic Predator Lamprey Fish
Known as predators, lampreys experience a life cycle that goes through three stages of metamorphosis. This fish is also classified as a parasitic lamprey and has a fairly sadistic way of looking for food.
Lampreys use their disc-shaped mouths with sharp teeth to latch onto prey and suck their blood.
However, this newly discovered fossil in China shows that the lamprey fish is not only a blood-seeking type but also a meat-eater.
According to Riley Black in National Geographic, the tooth structure of fossil lampreys has the ability to gouge the flesh of its prey, like an ice cream scoop.
In one of the fossils, signs of bone fragments were even found in its stomach, indicating that the lamprey’s bite was so strong that it could penetrate the bones of the prey’s skeleton.
Watch the video “Hey! Ancient blood-sucking eels appear again”
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2023-11-11 12:00:00
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