The oldest jawed fish
A spiny, shark-like fish in Chinese rock is the earliest undisputed jawed vertebrate — and our own ancestor.
- When
- Known to
- ± 3 million years
- Era
- Silurian, Paleozoic
Fanjingshania renovata, described from 439-million-year-old bone beds in Guizhou, predates the next-oldest jawed body fossils by around fifteen million years. Its skeleton combines features of sharks and bony fish, and shows a mode of growth in which the dermal armour was resorbed and remodelled as the animal grew. It pushes the origin of jawed vertebrates deep into the Silurian and confirms that jaws arose well before they came to dominate.