Haikouichthys

Haikouichthys is an extinct early fish-like craniate.

Haikouichthys
Temporal range:
Restoration
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Superclass: Agnatha
Order: †Myllokunmingiida
Family: †Myllokunmingiidae
Genus: †Haikouichthys
Luo et al., 1999
Species:
†H. ercaicunensis
Binomial name
Haikouichthys ercaicunensis
Luo et al., 1999

These creatures have backbones and distinct heads, and lived about 530 million years ago, during the Cambrian explosion.

Haikouichthys had a defined skull and other characters which suggest it is a true craniate, and perhaps one of the earliest fishes. Cladistic analysis indicates that the animal is probably a basal chordate or a basal craniate.[1] It does not show enough detail to be definitely included in either stem group.[2][3]

References
  1. Paleos. Archived 2009-04-29 at the Wayback Machine
  2. Donoghue P.C.J. & Purnell M.A. 2005. Genome duplication, extinction and vertebrate evolution. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 20 (6): 312–319. Archived 2008-12-17 at the Wayback Machine
  3. Shu D-G. et al. 2003. Head and backbone of the early Cambrian vertebrate Haikouichthys. Nature 421, 526-9,
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.