FISH FOSSILS
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The oceans are believed to be more than 4 billion years old. They were home to the very first known form of life on our planet 3.5 million years ago, blue-green algae. Invertebrate (without a spine) life forms thrived in these ancient seas and eventually exploded into dramatic diversity in the Devonian Period, nearly 400 million years ago but something else happened around 100 million years earlier than the Devonian that forever changed life on Earth. It was the emergence of creatures with a backbone - VERTEBRATES. The very
first vertebrates were fish. Initially,
these were jawless fishes called agnathans and the earliest
examples are known to date back to the Ordovician Period 500
million years ago.
Later, the It was also at this time, over 400 million years ago, that sharks and rays (chondrichthyans) appeared with the placoderms. Like the agnathans and placoderms, chondrichthyans had internal skeletons made up entirely of cartilage. The first fish to have complete skeletons made of bone arrived much later at 200 million years ago. These are known as the bony fishes or osteichthyans.
Except for placoderms, all major groups of fish still survive today. More primitive groups are such as the lampreys and hagfish are much more limited in variety than they were millions of years ago. The bony fishes are the most prevalent still in existence. |
Fish are
the most abundant of all living vertebrates
and make up slightly more than half of the approximately 48,500
described species with us today! With the longest
period of existence known of all vertebrates on our planet, it is no
wonder that fish are so diverse. It
is impossible Despite their proliferation, fish are relatively rare as fossils. Aside from shark's teeth with their near indestructible durability, the fragile nature of a fish body makes it a poor candidate for fossilization.
Nevertheless, there are some unique environments and circumstances that existed in prehistory where some deposits in the world produce the most impressive and perfectly preserved fossils known to science. With the most minute details retained in the host rock, these spectacular fish fossils offer a rare glimpse into life that existed hundreds of millions of years before the first human walked out planet.
The fish specimens we offer are not limited to what is just shown here. Please inquire as to any of your specific needs. Our continual contact with direct sources can be most valuable to locating that elusive fossil and several more specimens are always in various states of preparation than are just listed here.
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first
jawed fishes emerged and were similar in appearance with heavily armored
heads and cartilaginous internal skeletons but were equipped with strong
crushing jaws. These were the placoderms and some species like the Dunkleosteus
grew to frighteningly large proportions.
to accurately quantify the number of species of fish that
have lived since their beginning but based on known rates of evolution and
emergence of new species over the entire fossil record, it is most likely
in the MILLIONS! 
FISH FOSSILS
FISH FOSSILS FOR SALE