This little fish was feeding on flesh 150 million years ago | Smart News

The Jurassic Ocean was a pretty scary place. Toothed marine lizards such as ichthyosaurs, mosasaurs and plesiosaurs patrolled the seas of the world with the first sharks. A new search adds another starving creature to the mix. Hannah Osborne to Newsweek According to reports, German paleontologists have discovered the fossils of a fish resembling a piranha, 150 million years old, and some of its victims.

According to the study published in the journal Current biology, researchers have discovered the fossilized fish, called Piranhamesodon pinnatomus in calcareous deposits of southern Germany. They used CT scans and microscopic exams to look inside the fossils and examine their bone structure. While the fish – about 3 inches long – is tiny, its teeth are not. Like knives, triangular saw-tooth choppers are detached from its upper and lower jaws. On the basis of morphology, researchers believe that he had enough power to tear the flesh of other fish.

The discovery is surprising since the fish comes from a group that is not known to eat each other. As a rule, other related species have specialized in cracking open-shelled organisms.

"We were stunned by the fact that this fish had the teeth of a piranha," said Martina Kölbl-Ebert, senior author of the Jura-Museum Eichstätt in a press release. "It comes from a group of fish (pycnodontidae) famous for their brittle teeth. It's like finding a sheep with a grin like a wolf.

But what was even more remarkable was that it was from the Jurassic period. The fish as we know them, bony fish, just did not bite the flesh of the other fish at that time. While sharks have been able to chew pieces of flesh over the course of history, the bony fish have been feeding on invertebrates or have largely swallowed their prey in whole. Biting pieces of flesh or fins was something that came a lot later. "

P. pinnatomusHowever, it was probably not a killer. Researchers believe that fish have attacked the fins of other fish, such as modern-day piranhas. The fins of the fish grow back, which means that by targeting the fins instead of killing its prey P. pinnatomus sustainable carnivorism practiced. There is evidence of this technique. Fossils of other fish found nearby carry bite marks and missing fin pieces.

The fish probably also swam around its prey without being detected. "Judging by the shape of the body and the morphology of the fin, our fish swam slowly but was very manageable," says Kölbl-Ebert to George Dvorsky in Gizmodo. "He lived in the sponges and coral reefs, where he would have seemed rather unobtrusive, resembling any other contemporary coral fish. Since all the other fish in this group ate hard-shelled organisms, such as shells or sea urchins, they could have hid in this crowd and attacked their reckless prey with great efficiency. "

Despite his taste for fish fins, P. pinnatomus is not related to modern day piranhas. On the contrary, his penchant for the flesh is an example of convergent evolution, in which different species develop the same trait at different times and in different ways. While the old fish was a creature of salt water, modern piranhas are freshwater fish. The ancestors of modern piranhas did not evolve until about 25 million years ago – long after dinosaur extinction – and current piranha species, including some vegetarian fish, have been around for about 1.8 million years. years.

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