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Jaws and teeth of the earliest bony fishes

Nature volume 448, pages 583–586 (2007)Cite this article

Abstract

Extant jawed vertebrates, or gnathostomes, fall into two major monophyletic groups, namely chondrichthyans (cartilaginous fishes) and osteichthyans (bony fishes and tetrapods). Fossil representatives of the osteichthyan crown group are known from the latest Silurian period, 418 million years (Myr) ago, to the present. By contrast, stem chondrichthyans and stem osteichthyans are still largely unknown. Two extinct Palaeozoic groups, the acanthodians and placoderms, may fall into these stem groups or the common stem group of gnathostomes, but their relationships and monophyletic status are both debated. Here we report unambiguous evidence for osteichthyan characters in jaw bones referred to the late Silurian (423–416-Myr-old) fishes Andreolepis hedei and Lophosteus superbus, long known from isolated bone fragments, scales and teeth, and whose affinities to, or within, osteichthyans have been debated1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11. The bones are a characteristic osteichthyan maxillary and dentary, but the organization of the tooth-like denticles they bear differs from the large, conical teeth of crown-group osteichthyans, indicating that they can be assigned to the stem group. Andreolepis and Lophosteus are thus not only the oldest but also the most phylogenetically basal securely identified osteichthyans known so far.

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Figure 1: Comparison of the dentary of Andreolepis with that of an actinopterygian.
Figure 2: Comparison of the maxillary of Lophosteus with that of a sarcopterygian.
Figure 3: Relationships of Andreolepis and Lophosteus to other jawed vertebrates.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Lund University and the Institut für Geowissenschaften Tübingen for lending us specimens.

Author Contributions M.D. discovered the maxillary of Lophosteus, H. Blom restored the dentary of Andreolepis, and both provided stratigraphical data. All authors contributed equally to the rest of this study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Geología, Universitat de València, Dr Moliner 50, 46100 Burjassot, Valencia, Spain,

    Hector Botella

  2. Department of Physiology and Developmental Biology, Evolutionary Organismal Biology, Uppsala University, Norbyvägen 18A, 752 36 Uppsala, Sweden,

    Henning Blom & Per Erik Ahlberg

  3. Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Museum für Naturkunde, Invalidenstrasse 43, D-10115 Berlin, Germany,

    Markus Dorka

  4. Département Histoire de la Terre, UMR 5143, CNRS, Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, 47 rue Cuvier, 75231 Paris Cedex 05, France,

    Philippe Janvier

  5. Department of Palaeontology, The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, UK,

    Philippe Janvier

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  1. Hector Botella
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Correspondence to Philippe Janvier.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

This file contains Supplementary Notes and Supplementary Figures S1-S4 with Legends The file includes data about the age, locality and reference material (type material) of the taxa discussed in the printed version of the article. It also provides additional anatomical information about the two specimens described in the main text. (PDF 760 kb)

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Botella, H., Blom, H., Dorka, M. et al. Jaws and teeth of the earliest bony fishes. Nature 448, 583–586 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature05989

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