Researchers have managed to discover a brain that apparently More than 319 million years It is old and is therefore known to be the oldest preserved brain from a vertebrate in the history of life on Earth. This brain is apparently left inside the skull of a fish from the Carboniferous period.
“This discovery is exciting and unexpected,” said Sam Giles of the Natural History Museum in London, who is the senior author of the study. So unexpected that it took us a while to be sure we were on the same side. Apart from the charms of preserving this brain, Anatomy of the brain “This fossil creates great complications for understanding how fish brains evolved.”
This amazing brain inside a skull fossil coccocephalus wildi It has been found that it belongs to a group of animals of the Carboniferous era known as radiopaws. Of course, the fossil of this skull was found in a coal pit in England about a century ago, but now researchers have examined it with a CT scan and have reached this fascinating discovery.
An ancient fish brain discovered in incredible detail
In their scan, they found an unknown, symmetrical bullet that looked like a dense object It was seen in the CT image. This bullet also had spaces that indicated the presence of Ventricles, cords and nerves Was. After zooming in further on the scan, the scientists were convinced that what they had found was a real brain.
This brain structure is preserved with the help of a relatively common process that involves the formation of minerals instead of soft tissues. But the formation of these minerals with such high details is a rare occurrence. Giles says discovering them can The oldest three-dimensional fossil brain throughout history.
He also added about the importance of this discovery: “This small fossil is not only the oldest example of a vertebrate brain, but also shows what we have so far learned from Brain development “We knew in living species, it needs to be reevaluated.” The results of this study have been published in the journal Nature.
