Sharks are most often thought of as “living fossils,” creatures that haven’t changed much in the hundreds of millions of years they’ve been on Earth. But a new study may prove that idea wrong, showing that modern sharks are actually much more advanced than their ancient counterparts.
The research, led by scientists at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, looked at a surprisingly intact 325-million-year-old jaw fossil from a species named Ozarcus mapesae, an early relative of modern sharks that was about 12 to 20 inches long. The fossil shows a part of the skull called the arches, which support the shark’s gills. After scanning the fossil with X-rays, the scientists realized that the arrangement of the arches is completely different than that of modern sharks and is instead much more similar to a bony fish, according to a press release.told Discovery News.
Gill arches are believed to be the predecessor to modern jaws in vertebrates, as well as to human ear bones, National Geographic reports. Instead of studying modern sharks to understand the arches, the research concludes, scientists should be looking at bony fish. (MORE: An Ocean Without Sharks Is Bad for Everyone)
“Bony fishes might have more to tell us about our first jawed ancestors than do living sharks,” study co-author John Maisey said in the release.
Ozarcus is named after the Ozark region in Arkansas where the fossil was found, according to Discovery. The second half of its name honors paleobiologist Gene Mapes and her husband Royal Mapes, who co-authored the paper.
The research is published in the journal Nature.
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