Devonian Armored Fish Show Multiple Ways to Crush Hard-Shelled Prey

Researchers have found that ancient armored fish, known as placoderms, developed different jaw designs to crush hard-shelled prey. These fish, which were among the first vertebrates to evolve jaws and teeth over 400 million years ago, experimented with various jaw shapes and biting parts.

According to Phys.org, Flinders University researchers studied placoderms from an ancient reef in northern Western Australia. They discovered that smaller species used broad, flat crushing plates to pulverize whole prey, while larger species evolved sharp, weapon-like teeth to pierce and break apart armored prey.

The study, as reported by Phys.org, was conducted by Dr. Alice Clement, an ARC Future Fellow, who noted that placoderms provide a rare opportunity to understand how early jaws became specialized for different diets.

Brief written by urgent.news from Sci.News, Phys.org — 2 reports on this story. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.