16 Sep The Oldest Fish In The World Lived 500 Million Years Ago
Its name was Metaspriggina walcotti and it wriggled through the open sea roughly 518 million-years-ago.
Fossils of the bizarre creature were first discovered and named in 1993 as it was thought then to be related to Spriggina from the Ediacaran fauna of Australia, dated at 560 million years old.
New fossils were recently found, however, that display rare soft tissue features such as stained impressions of the heart, liver, gut and circulatory vessels.
“It breathed through seven pairs of external gills. It had a stout rod supporting its spine (notochord) enabling strong W-shaped muscle bands to develop along its entire body.
Its ability to swim fast was no doubt a key factor in its success while living in precarious seas inhabited by huge predators such as Anomalocaris” (The Conversation).
This fish would have been quite a spectacle, if not for it only reaching a length of 6 centimeters. This also would have made it quite difficult to spot on any old fishfinder (probably not a FishHunter though!)
If you want to read the whole story on this strange fish and the history of fish in whole, you can find it in the original article here.