Origin of jaws - the greatest unsolved mystery of early vertebrate evolution [ 2010 - 2012 ]

Research Grant

Researchers A/Prof GC Young; Prof JA Long; A/Prof TJ Senden; Dr KM Trinajstic; Dr CJ Burrow; Prof Dr M Zhu; Prof CR Marshall

Brief description The 2008 discovery of an unborn embryo in the 380 million-year-old "Mother Fish" from the famous Gogo fossil deposit in NW Australia has attracted a collaboration of Australian, American and Chinese scientists to a new international collaboration. The team will study spectacular new fossils from central Australia and southern China, the oldest known back-boned animals with jaws and a hard skeleton. Innovative 3D X-ray computer tomography, and the Australian synchrotron, will be used to investigate ancient cells and preserved soft tissue structures, to search for evidence that copulation and internal fertilization, as in modern mammals, might have originated when jaws first evolved.

Funding Amount $370,000

Funding Scheme Discovery Projects