Scientists have discovered in China the fossil remains of what could be the first creature on the planet with a clearly recognizable face . It is Entelognathus primordialis , it lived 419 million years ago, at the end of the Silurian, it measured around 20 centimeters in length and was the first vertebrate with a modern jaw , as the authors explain in Nature . The species provides a link between two groups of fish that were believed to be unrelated, and questions previous notions about how the face of vertebrates evolved.
Specifically, the specimen is a placoderm, with the skin made up of plates, and a member of the gnathostoma family, fish that developed jaws from the modification of their anterior gills. The jaw of this fossil is very similar to that of a current bony fish, suggesting a relationship between placoderms and osteichthians or bony fish.
Entelognathus primordialis has a mandibular structure that until now was attributed only to bony fish, the researchers note. The appearance of the jaw was a key moment in the evolution of vertebrate animals.
