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Giant Plankton-Eating Fishes Roamed Prehistoric Seas

  • 01-03-2010 12:48am
    #1
    marco_polo
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 10,088 Mod ✭✭✭✭


    Scientists have discovered a large planktion eating fish named Bonnerichthys, filling an ecological niche that was previously thought to have been unoccupied during the reign of the Dinosaurs.

    100227171454-large.jpg

    Although the fossils of other giant plankton-eating fishes are known from much older rocks, until now they were thought to have been a short-lived and unsuccessful evolutionary experiment.

    http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100227171454.htm

    ScienceDaily (Feb. 28, 2010) — Giant plankton-eating fishes roamed the prehistoric seas for over 100 million years before they were wiped out in the same event that killed off the dinosaurs, new fossil evidence has shown.

    An international team describe how new fossils from Asia, Europe and the US reveal a previously unknown dynasty of giant plankton-eating bony fishes that filled the seas of the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, between 66-172 million years ago.

    The team report their findings February 19 in Science.

    'Today's giant plankton-feeders -- such as baleen whales, basking sharks and manta rays -- include the largest living vertebrate animals, so the fact that creatures of this kind were missing from the fossil record for hundreds of millions of years was always a mystery,' said Dr Matt Friedman of Oxford University's Department of Earth Sciences, an author of the report.
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