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Prehistoric Fish Pioneered Sex

Balloon Lumpfish Displayed In Tokyo

Balloon Lumpfish (Eumicrotremus pacificus) attach themselves to balloons at the Epson Shinagawa Aqua Stadium on July 9, 2008 in Tokyo, Japan. The deep-sea fish have ventral sucker disks which help them to cling to rocks in the water. (Getty Images)more pics »

LONDON, Feb 25 (Reuters) - Sex has been a fact of life for at least 380 million years, longer than previously thought.

Sex has been a fact of life for at least 380 million years.Internal fertilisation was widespread among prehistoric fish living on ancient tropical coral reefs in the Devonian period, research published in the journal Nature on Wednesday showed.

The discovery sheds new light on the reproductive history of all jawed vertebrates, including humans.

"It shifts how we think about how reproduction evolved. You're a jawed vertebrate and I'm a jawed vertebrate, so this is our own history," said Zerina Johanson, a palaeontologist at the Natural History Museum in London.

OTHER ANIMAL ODDITIES
Johanson and colleagues in Australia, where the fossils were unearthed, deduced that copulation was common among armoured placoderms, extinct shark-like species, after finding embryos inside Materpiscis, Austroptyctodus and Incisoscutum placoderms.

Finding fossil evidence of reproduction is rare and experts initially missed the signs in the case of one specimen, where a tiny embryo was at first thought to be a last meal.

It was thought that such ancient fish would show a more primitive type of reproduction, with sperm and eggs combining externally in the water, as still happens with many modern fish.

Adding to the evidence is the discovery of a modification in the pelvic fin on the belly of adult fish. The scientists believe this was used by the male to grip the female during mating, as happens with modern sharks.

Placoderms, thought to be the oldest jawed vertebrates, were fearsome predators with bony armour covering their head and forming the biting surfaces of their jaws, which could act like self-sharpening scissors.

The biggest were as large as a great white shark. (Editing by Louise Ireland)

Even more fish pics on Zimbio (click any photo):

  • Balloon Lumpfish Displayed In Tokyo
  • Balloon Lumpfish Displayed In Tokyo
  • Balloon Lumpfish Displayed In Tokyo
  • Balloon Lumpfish Displayed In Tokyo
  • Balloon Lumpfish Displayed In Tokyo
  • Balloon Lumpfish Displayed In Tokyo
  • Balloon Lumpfish Displayed In Tokyo

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Comments
cool picture
I thought it started in the futuristic tri-decathorian period on the backs of translucient eels?! Boy have I been misled!
I thought jesus invented copulation.
Professing themselves wise, they became fools.
I discovered sex when I was 12, unfortunately, my hand resisted.
This must have happened just before fish became bears; bears, monkeys; and a monkey my uncle! And, from nothing came something!
Billions of years ago...........blah,blah,blah. As previously mentioned "from nothing came something" and what makes it even more stupid is they state this as fact as if they were there and witnessed it. Someday every knee will bow to the one and only Creator and then it will be to late for those that rejected the gift of eternal life which comes only by way of Jesus Christ. By the way I choose to believe I was created by God the creator of all, and He is my Father. Darwinians on the other hand believe they came from premordial slime. So if we follow this out the con clusion is there father is a slimebag. No wonder most liberals are so lost. Talk about a low self esteem. .....
I knew something about sex smells like fish....
A little intepretation of evidence and a whole lot of imagination. Boy are we smart!
These fish did a whole lot less judging than us humans. Yes we have come a long way.
Wow are they smart...I feel so stupid and inferior to these intellectual giants...they just can't believe there is intelligent far greater than their's
This is scientifically baseless bullsh*t.
The End- Does your Father teach you to be so insulting? Cripes, give it a rest.
We all know the earth is 6000 years old, give or take 1000 years, because we can count backwards from Adam to today. I wish everyone would just give it up on this argument about evolution, as if scientists ever discovered anything of value. Stupid unbelieving scientists, they never figure out what's really going on. They only have their theories and hypotheses. They don't have the TRUTH. We have better things to argue about, like germ theory. Just like evolution, germ theory is just that -- a theory. Therefore, it's BS. All theories are equally valid and we should teach them all in schools. The TRUTH is obvious for anyone willing to believe THE BIBLE. God wrote THE BIBLE so it must be true. God is TRUTH so HIS WORDS must also be TRUE. We know God is real because THE BIBLE says so. God himself says HE is real in his BOOK, THE BIBLE, which we know is the TRUTH, because God says so and HE is God, so we must believe HIM, otherwise HE would not be God. If HE is God, then HIS WORD must be TRUE and it is TRUE so HE must be God. What is so hard about that? It makes perfect sense to those willing to open their eyes to THE TRUTH.
Quoting THEEND09: "As previously mentioned "from nothing came something" and what makes it even more stupid is they state this as fact as if they were there and witnessed it." Does not the Genesis state that God created all from nothing? Did he not create everything only from His words? And by the way, did you witness the Creation? Were you there personally to see Jehovah separate the light from the darkness before he created the stars to shine? "Someday every knee will bow to the one and only Creator and then it will be to late for those that rejected the gift of eternal life which comes only by way of Jesus Christ." How do you know there is one "Creator"? How do you know that the one Creator is your God? Couldn't the one Creator be another God? I personally think that Amon-Ra is the Creator. There is just as much evidence that Amon-Ra created the universe as there is that Jehovah or Jesus did. It is all written a long time ago and I don't accept your writings. The Egyptian writings are older and more persuasive than most of the Judeo-Christian writings. Therefore, the Egyptian writings are true and your writings are false. "By the way I choose to believe I was created by God the creator of all, and He is my Father." Big mistake here. The God you worship is not the true God. You are condemning yourself to eternal damnation. Your father is the one who sprogged up your old lady. And I'm sure he ain't God. "Darwinians on the other hand believe they came from premordial slime. So if we follow this out the con clusion is there father is a slimebag. No wonder most liberals are so lost. Talk about a low self esteem. ....." In know plenty of Christian slimebags. Not all Darwinians are liberals, either. I know several conservatives who believe in evolution. Science is not right or left. And low self-esteem might result in believing that you are born a sinner, that at birth, as an infant, you are eternally damned, even though you don't have a sense of self yet. On the other hand, a little humility is a good thing. Does not your book say that "pride cometh before a fall and haughty look before destruction"? So before you start getting all proud and all, maybe you should re-read your "Lord Jesus Christ's" writings and get a clue. You are like the Pharisees who were boisterous in their false "holiness." One more quote from yer book: "Be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as the Lord Christ Jesus hath forgiven you." How about if you practice what you preach instead of willfully and publicly showing thyself to be an a$$hole. Jesus would not be happy with you calling people stupid.
I thought this would be an article about Madonna
Stop with the religious-anti religious BS. It's an article on a theory. Doesn't mean you have to break out the Bible to disprove it. This is not the place. I consider myself Christian and you guys are making the rest of us look terrible. Jesus is Lord. Thank you for clarifying that, I'd forgotten it from the post right before it. Jeez.
RaBrah I know of who you speak but where is the global knowledge of Ra. The Bible is beyond the best seller every year, year after year. You can chose to believe that everything came from the big bang and I challange you to read the story of creation in the Bible and ask God to open your eyes. And if you continue to not understand please don't give up because it says in the Bible in 1 Corinthians 2:14, "But the natural man receives not the things of the spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned". My intention is not to argue with you, my intention is to bring you the good news that there is a God, He is our creator and He did leave a book of instructions for us to follow. My sole purpose since coming to this knowledge is to tell those who do not know His name and His name is Jesus, may you find Him now.
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