Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) have recently found two fossil repositories in the early Silurian layers of southwest Guizhou and Chongqing that are rewriting the “from fish to human” evolutionary narrative.

Their results were published in four articles in the journal Nature today.

Among the extant vertebrates, 99.8% of species, including humans, are gnathostomes or jawed vertebrates. The basic body plan and several key organs of humans can be traced back to the origin of gnathostomes.

The rise of jaws is one of the biggest innovations in the history of vertebrates. However, how this innovation happened remains hidden in mist, mainly because fossils of early jawed vertebrates were only found in large numbers until the beginning of the Devonian (419 million years ago), while molecular data prove that the origin of jawed vertebrates should be earlier than ~450 million years ago.

Hence, there is a huge gap in the fossil record of the early jawed vertebrates, spanning at least 30 million years from the Late Ordovician through most of the Silurian.

The latest findings of ZHU Min’s team from IVPP are unearthed from two new fossil depositories, shedding light on the rise of jawed vertebrates: These jawed fishes were already thriving in the waters of the South China block, at least 440 million years ago, and by late Silurian, more diverse and larger jawed fishes had evolved and began to spread around the world, opening the saga of fish landing and our humans eventually evolved.

Discoveries of fish fossils from the two depositories help to trace many human body structures back to ancient fishes, some 440 million years ago and fill some key gaps in the evolution of “from fish to human”, and provide further iron evidence to the evolutionary path.

The Chongqing fish fossil depository in the Upper Red Beds of the Silurian system dates back to 436 million years ago.

It is the world’s only early Silurian Lagerstätte (fossil depository with exceptional preservation) which preserves complete, head-to-tail jawed fishes, providing a peerless chance to peek into the proliferating “dawn of fishes”.

This fossil “treasure hoard” stands among other great Chinese Lagerstätten: Chengjiang Biota and the Jehol Biota, all provide key jigsaw puzzles previously missing in the tree of life.

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