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There are 150 million years ago, prehistoric fish swimming in the sponges and coral reefs of what is now southern Germany would probably have be not suspected the existence of a predator resembling a piranha lurking among them. But when they realized the danger – CHOMP! – The sneaky creature would have bitten one of his fins.
At the time, these waters were teeming with bony fish called pycnodontiformes, known for their brittle teeth that were probably used to break up snail shells and sea urchin spines. Scientists thought, for the most part, that other fish were not on the menu.
But now, researchers have found a sharp tooth pyknodontiform that they say has torn pieces of flesh, especially fins, other fish. They called it Piranhamesodon pinnatomus. The discovery, published Thursday in the journal Current Biology, represents the oldest case of eating fish flesh and could lead scientists to rethink the predatory practices of this group.
"It's a wolf in sheepskin," said Martina Kölbl-Ebert, vertebrate paleontologist and director of the Jura-Museum Eichstätt in Germany. "This one had daggers and scissors in his mouth, which implies a totally different feeding pattern."
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Mrs Kölbl-Ebert and her colleagues examined the fossil in 2016 with the help of scalpels, fine needles and a microscope. It came from the same fossil deposit where scientists first discovered Archeopteryx, the famous feathered dinosaur.
According to Dr. Kölbl-Ebert, it was probably a shallow tropical sea dotted with small islands populated by insects, lizards and dinosaurs when the piranha-like fish was alive. . After extracting the fossil from the rocks, they made a micro-scan on the specimen.
Although Piranhamesodon pinnatomus may have resembled other colored coral fish from the outside, it had major differences inside its mouth.
Most pycnodontes had scissor-shaped frontal teeth that they used to grasp, as well as flat pebble-like teeth to crush. But the new species, a few inches long, had six long pointed teeth, slightly curved back, as well as six triangular teeth with serrated edges.
"We were stunned to see that this fish had the teeth of a piranha," said Dr. Kölbl-Ebert.
While his Pycnodont parents swallowed almost all of their prey, the sharp teeth of the newly discovered fish would have allowed him to eat much larger prey than himself. According to the researchers, prehistoric sharks and sea turtles were the only other known carnivores in these waters, known as the Solnhofen Archipelago, during the period known as Upper Jurassic. This made Piranhamesodon pinnatomus a pioneer among bony fishes when it came to slicing prey.
The team indicated that they did not know if Piranhamesodon pinnatomus ate live fish or was a scavenger. But fish fossils with missing or bitten fins suggest that fish pinched fish appendages unwise while they were still alive, a practice observed in modern piranhas.
"If you bite a fish in the belly, it is likely to die and then it is lost," said Dr. Kölbl-Ebert, "but if you only nibble pieces in the fin, it will grow back and you can start all over again. "
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