Scientists piece together weird ancient fish with platypus-like bill

20 June 2018 — 10:16am

Palaeontologists have reconstructed an ancient Australian fish that swam on the sea floor like a stingray and had a long bill similar to a platypus.

Fossils that date back 400 million years have allowed scientists to piece together a revealing picture of the strange fish, which had nostrils coming from its eye sockets and a long bill or snout with jaws.

It is named Brindabellaspis after the Brindabella Range near Canberra and belongs to an extinct group of armoured prehistoric fish known as placoderms.

Scientists from the Australian National University and Flinders University have dated the fossils to the early Devonian period, more than 175 million years before the first dinosaurs.

More:
https://www.theage.com.au/national/nsw/scientists-piece-together-weird-ancient-fish-with-platypus-like-bill-20180620-p4zmjl.html