A piranha-like fish threatened the Jurassic seas

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – You can call it a prehistoric prehistoric.

Scientists said Thursday they discovered in southern Germany the fossil of a fish that, with its jaws full of sharp teeth, looked a lot like the current piranhas, the stars of much more than their share of the movies horror Hollywood. But this one lived in the Jurassic era 152 million years ago.

Named Piranhamesodon pinnatomus, it is the oldest known example of bony fish – as opposed to a cartilaginous fish such as sharks – capable of cutting the flesh rather than swallowing prey, allowing it to thrive. Attack victims larger than himself like the piranhas.

Piranhamesodon, about 9 cm (3 1/2 in) long, lived in the sponges and coral reefs of the Solnhofen Archipelago, a shallow tropical sea located in the south of the island. current Bavaria. Piranhas are freshwater fish that inhabit the rivers and lakes of South America.

Piranhamesodon was small, but his mouth was worthy of a horror film. He boasted long pointed dagger-shaped teeth along the outer edge of his upper jaw and at the front of his lower jaw. He also had triangular teeth with sawtooth cutting edges on the side of the lower jaw.

"We were stunned to find that this fish had teeth capable of slicing the flesh. It comes from a group of fish, the pycnodontidae, famous for their brittle teeth, "said paleontologist Martina Kölbl-Ebert of the Jura-Museum Eichstätt in Germany, who led the research published in the journal Current Biology.

"It's as if we found a sheep to the wolf like a sheep," added Kölbl-Ebert.

The fossil came from the same Bavarian limestone deposits as Archeopteryx, the first known bird.

"In the same career, we also have a number of other fish that may have been victims of Piranhamesodon. They present fin and fin injuries, some freshly wounded before they die and be fossilized, while others present completely healed lesions with fin regeneration, "said Kölbl-Ebert .

Although he shares traits with piranhas, Piranhamesodon was neither their ancestor nor their relative. The oldest known piranhas lived about 15 million years ago.

Piranhamesodon is an example of a phenomenon called "convergent evolution" in which organisms independently acquire similar characteristics because of their adaptation to niches or similar ecological environments.

"The new fish is an extremely interesting example of convergent evolution, which is evolving – for bone fish, then – in a totally new way of life," Kölbl-Ebert said.