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Oldest vertebrate news article



Caught the tail end of this story on the news this morning...thought it might be of interest...

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/story_52585.asp



Fossil of oldest vertebrate found

A fossil, believed to be the oldest vertebrate ever found, has been uncovered in South Australia.

The five-centimetre fossil, which looks like an elongated tadpole and is believed to be at least 560 million years old, was unearthed in sandstone by station owner Ross Fargher at a secret location in SA's Flinders Rangers.

The SA Museum said the fossil was part of a marine animal known as the Ediacara Chordate.

A fin on its back, a set of inclined muscle bars and a head were clearly visible, the museum said.

The fossil's age eclipsed that of one previously considered the oldest at 530 million years that was discovered in China several years ago, museum palaeontologist Jim Gehling said.


<http://direct.ninemsn.com.au/scripts/accipiter/adclick/cat=news/site=ninemsn.news/area=National/loc=top/aamsz=medium>69b5b9.jpg"The fantastic thing about this specimen is that it's at least 30 million years older than anything else that could be even vaguely related to vertebrates," Dr Gehling said.


"(The Flinders Ranges fossil is) at least 560 million years old, it could be even about five million years older (565 million years old) - it's very hard to tell."

Dr Gehling said vertebrates were recognised as being the oldest and largest animals to exist on earth.

"They (vertebrate fossils) include some very bizarre things but most of them are almost unrecognisable in terms of the kinds of animals we see today," he said.

"A few of them seem to relate to whales and crustaceans and maybe even starfish and jelly fish."

He said vertebrate fossils were particularly interesting because humans were vertebrates.

"The holy grail of palaeontology is always to work out where we came from," he said.

The fossil was expected to be brought back to Adelaide for further analysis by museum staff.

"While we say it has a backbone, there's no direct evidence of a backbone," Dr Gehling said.

"It's the shape of the thing and it's the fact that it has these inclined sets of muscles and a head end ... which makes it look like a little fishy tadpole type thing, which is evidence that it's something different to all the other fossils
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------------------------------------------------
Chris Glen
PhD candidate,
Anatomy Dept.,
University of Queensland
Q 4072, AUSTRALIA
Room: 418
Phone: (07) 3365 2720
Email: s370548@student.uq.edu.au
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