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A lamprey from the Cretaceous Jehol biota of China

Nature volume 441, pages 972–974 (2006)Cite this article

Abstract

Widespread nowadays in freshwater and coastal seas of the cold and temporal zones, lampreys are a jawless vertebrate group that has been in existence for more than 300 million years but left a meagre fossil record. Only two fossil lamprey species, namely Mayomyzon pieckoensis1,2 and Hardistiella montanensis3,4,5, have been recognized with certainty from North American Carboniferous marine deposits6. Here we report a freshwater lamprey from the Early Cretaceous epoch (about 125 million years ago) of Inner Mongolia, China. The new taxon, Mesomyzon mengae, has a long snout, a well-developed sucking oral disk, a relatively long branchial apparatus showing branchial basket, seven gill pouches, gill arches and impressions of gill filaments, about 80 myomeres and several other characters that are previously unknown or ambiguous. Our finding not only indicates Mesomyzon's closer relationship to extant lampreys but also reveals the group's invasion into a freshwater environment no later than the Early Cretaceous. The new material furthers our understanding of ancient lampreys, bridges the gap between the Carboniferous ones and their recent relatives, and adds to our knowledge of the evolutionary history of lampreys.

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Figure 1: Mesomyzon mengae gen. et sp. nov.

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Acknowledgements

We thank X. Wang for providing the fossils and information on their provenance and stratigraphic horizon; Z. Zhou for discussions and reading the manuscript; M. Zhu for providing information and discussions; M. Yang for the illustrations; and W. Gao for photography. This study was supported by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the Asian–Swedish Research Partnership Program of the Swedish Research Council.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, PO Box 643, 100044, China

    Mee-mann Chang & Jiangyong Zhang

  2. Natural History Museum and Biodiversity Research Center, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, 66045, USA

    Desui Miao

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  1. Mee-mann Chang
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Correspondence to Mee-mann Chang or Jiangyong Zhang.

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Chang, Mm., Zhang, J. & Miao, D. A lamprey from the Cretaceous Jehol biota of China. Nature 441, 972–974 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature04730

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