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Palaeontology

Birth of the jawed vertebrates

The discovery of embryos in certain fossil fishes not only shows that internal fertilization and live birth evolved early in vertebrate history, but also raises questions about the origin of jawed vertebrates.

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Figure 1: Gnathostomes and their modes of reproduction.

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Ahlberg, P. Birth of the jawed vertebrates. Nature 457, 1094–1095 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/4571094a

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