Oldest vertebrate brain found is 319 million years old

Scientists discovered the brain fossil An animal that lived 319 million years ago wins the world record brain The oldest derived from a vertebrate animal. The research was published in the scientific journal NatureIt was conducted by researchers at the University of Michigan in the United States.

The fossil belongs to one of the first ray-finned fish, Coccocephalus wildi, but the discovery isn’t all that new. The fact is that the fish was found in a coal mine almost a century ago, but during the new research, scientists conducted a CT scan and found that the fossilization process also occurs in the soft tissues of the animal’s skull.

While examining prehistoric fish, the researchers detected a small ball in the skull that glowed similar to a brain. From then on, they began to suspect that the fossilization process also took place inside the skull, so they kept the fish’s brain in the process of preserving it.

fossilized brain

“It had all these features and I was like, ‘Is this really a brain I’m seeing? So I zoomed in on that area of ​​the skull to do a second high-resolution scan, and it was very clear that this was exactly what it was supposed to be,’ he said. from the University of Michigan.

Until then, the record holder was a shark that lived about 300 million years ago, but scientists have also found other fossilized brains in good condition. The oldest organ ever found is the heart of a fish that lived about 380 million years ago.

As the researchers suggest, the fish was preserved shortly after its death under sediments, in a place where there was very little oxygen – meaning that its body as well as its brain were fossilized. As this process may take place more than they thought, the discovery sheds new light on scientists, and so future work with fossilized fish should include new methods used in this research.