A 3D braincase of the early jawed vertebrate Palaeospondylus from Australia

doi:10.1093/nsr/nwae444

IVPP-IR

	A 3D braincase of the early jawed vertebrate Palaeospondylus from Australia
	Burrow, Carole J.1; Young, Gavin C.2,3; Lu, Jing 4,5
	2025-01-21
发表期刊	NATIONAL SCIENCE REVIEW
ISSN	2095-5138
页码	9
通讯作者	Lu, Jing(lujing@ivpp.ac.cn)
摘要	Palaeospondylus gunni Traquair, 1890, is represented by thousands of similarly preserved articulated fossils from the Achannaras quarry (similar to 390 Mya) in Caithness, Scotland. With radically different interpretations of its structure, it has been assigned to almost all major jawless and jawed vertebrate groups. Here we report a new and older species of Palaeospondylus from the Early Devonian of Australia (c. 400 Ma), investigated using high-resolution computed tomography. Its 3D-preserved braincase demonstrates a combination of primitive gnathostome features including an anteriorly positioned transverse cranial fissure of uncertain homology, a large dorsal fontanelle and a small hypophysial fossa. Contrary to recent interpretations of P. gunni, the new braincase shows that Palaeospondylus lacks both a postorbital process and an intracranial joint. Our new Australian species extends the history of Palaeospondylus back some 10 million years prior to its occurrence in Scotland. The newly identified neurocranial characters have been coded into a phylogenetic analysis that places Palaeospondylus as a sister group of the Chondrichthyes, but some neurocranial characters could indicate a phylogenetic position within the gnathostome stem group. This paper describes a new Australian species of an enigmatic 400-million-year-old fossil vertebrate, Palaeospondylus, previously only known from Scotland. The 3D preservation of the new specimens facilitates a much better understanding of the skeletal anatomy of this unusual jawed vertebrate.
关键词	Australia Early Devonian gnathostome Palaeospondylus braincase
DOI	10.1093/nsr/nwae444
关键词[WOS]	ONTOGENIC DEVELOPMENT ; EARLY EVOLUTION ; LABYRINTH
收录类别	SCI
语种	英语
资助项目	ARC[DP 0772138] ; ARC[0558499] ; ARC[1092870] ; National Natural Science Foundation of China[42130209]
项目资助者	ARC ; National Natural Science Foundation of China
WOS研究方向	Science & Technology - Other Topics
WOS类目	Multidisciplinary Sciences
WOS记录号	WOS:001400470300001
出版者	OXFORD UNIV PRESS
引用统计
文献类型	期刊论文
条目标识符	http://119.78.100.205/handle/311034/24217
专题	中国科学院古脊椎动物与古人类研究所
通讯作者	Lu, Jing
作者单位	1.Queensland Museum, Geosci, Hendra 4011, Australia 2.Australian Natl Univ, Dept Mat Phys, Canberra 2600, Australia 3.Australian Museum, Res Inst, Sydney, NSW 2010, Australia 4.Chinese Acad Sci, Key Lab Vertebrate Evolut & Human Origins, Inst Vertebrate Paleontol & Paleoanthropol, Beijing 100044, Peoples R China 5.Univ Chinese Acad Sci, Beijing 100049, Peoples R China
推荐引用方式 GB/T 7714	Burrow, Carole J.,Young, Gavin C.,Lu, Jing. A 3D braincase of the early jawed vertebrate Palaeospondylus from Australia[J]. NATIONAL SCIENCE REVIEW,2025:9.
APA	Burrow, Carole J.,Young, Gavin C.,&Lu, Jing.(2025).A 3D braincase of the early jawed vertebrate Palaeospondylus from Australia.NATIONAL SCIENCE REVIEW,9.
MLA	Burrow, Carole J.,et al."A 3D braincase of the early jawed vertebrate Palaeospondylus from Australia".NATIONAL SCIENCE REVIEW (2025):9.