The 300 Million Year Old Brain

Pickens writes "Paleontologists recently discovered the world's oldest brain nestled within a 300-million-year-old fish fossil of one of the extinct relatives of modern ratfishes, also known as 'host sharks' or chimaeras. These chimaera relatives, called iniopterygians, represented bizarre beasts that sported massive skulls with huge eye sockets, shark-like teeth in rows, tails with clubs, huge pectoral fins that were placed almost on their backs, and bone-like spikes or hooks tipping the fins. The brain shows details such as a large vision lobe and optic nerve stretching to the proper place on the braincase, which fits with the fish's large eye sockets. The ear canals of the extinct fish only exist on a horizontal plane so the fish could only detect side-to-side movements, and not up or down. 'There is nothing like this known today; it is really bizarre,' said John Maisey, paleontologist at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. 'But now that we know that brains might be preserved in such ancient fossils, we can start looking for others. We are limited in information about early vertebrate brains, and the evolution of the brain lies at the core of vertebrate history.'"

Comments

Amazing

[eclectro]

That it escaped all the zombies from back then. Dinosaur zombies.

Is going to cause some serious reexamination.

[JoshuaZ]

The brain in question is pretty small compared to the brain case. Since brain case size is the main method of telling how large a brain an animal had this is going to suggest some possible need to reevaluate that technique's accuracy beyond providing an upper bound on brain size.

Re:Is going to cause some serious reexamination.

[Meneguzzi]

I am not a doctor, archaeologist, biologist or any other relevant profession, but is there not any shrinkage do body parts and organs as they lose humidity after death? Of course this is not necessarily a good comparison, but all the mummies I saw on museums had clearly shrunk with time, so is it not fair to assume that fossilized brains were larger when the animal was alive?

Re:Kansas?

[anagama]

It was transported there by rail of course. Airplanes didn't exist way back when earth that makes up Kansas was underwater.

Host Sharks?

[nog_lorp]

Please. Also known as ghost sharks makes a little more sense.

This research is useful...

[MillenneumMan]

I am hoping they can apply the results of this research to finding brains in Senators and Congressmen

Re:Kansas?

[Gregory Arenius]

It was stranded there after God flooded the Earth. Really. :)

Cheers,
Greg

lasers

[rogeroger]

those huge eye sockets may interfere with standard laser mounts

Define irony...

[denzacar]

We are limited in information about early vertebrate brains, and the evolution of the brain lies at the core of vertebrate history.'

But paleontologists recently discovered the oldest known example nestled within a 300-million-year-old fish fossil from Kansas.

Boy, are some intelligently designed people going to be pissed off at this fish.
Not only is it 300 million years old, but it is also not very intelligently designed with that "can't see up or down"-vision.
And all that right under their noses without them even noticing it.

One would think that the 300 million years old fishy smell would be a giveaway.