How a fossilised fish reveals fresh insight into evolution

Dr Sam Giles explains how a 319-million-year-old fossilised fish, pulled from a coal mine in England more than a century ago, has revealed the oldest example of a well-preserved vertebrate brain.

CT-scanning, where X-rays are used to reveal internal features, shows the skull of the creature contains a brain and cranial nerves that are roughly an inch long.

Researchers at the University of Birmingham (UK) and the University of Michigan (USA) believe that the discovery opens a window into the neural anatomy and early evolution of a major group of fishes alive today - ray-finned fishes.

This unexpected find of a three-dimensionally preserved vertebrate brain gives us a startling insight into the neural anatomy of ray-finned fish. It tells us a more complicated pattern of brain evolution than suggested by living species alone, allowing us to better define how and when present day bony fishes evolved.

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This is what I mean when I say let's go on a fishing trip