The Evolution of Fish

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Published 2016-01-22

The evolution of fish began about 530 million years ago during the Cambrian explosion. Early fish from the fossil record are represented by a group of small, jawless, armoured fish known as ostracoderms. Jawless fish lineages are mostly extinct. An extant clade, the lampreys may approximate ancient pre-jawed fish. The first jaws are found in Placoderm fossils. The diversity of jawed vertebrates may indicate the evolutionary advantage of a jawed mouth. It is unclear if the advantage of a hinged jaw is greater biting force, improved respiration, or a combination of factors. The evolution of fish is not studied as a single event since fish do not represent a monophyletic group but a paraphyletic one (by exclusion of the tetrapods).

All Comments (21)

@FreezingTheMind 7 years ago

I think this stuff is awesome. But to hate Christians because dumb ones started wars and attacked others, is just prejudice. Thats like saying that all Muslims are terrorists. And being Christian, Id like to apologize for all the ones being rude and being hateful. I love the idea of evolution and theres no denying its evidence. But with that said, calling people who have a religion, "cancerous" or "retarded" just makes you as bad as them! So please, we're all human here, lets just respect others views and move along and enjoy the video alright?
@Dantick09 7 years ago

I wonder what those early fish tasted like
@Mattropolis97 7 years ago

This is the kind of stuff I like to watch before I go to bed. So relaxing
@mannyfit75 7 years ago

The narrator is Master Arngeir (Christopher Plummer), one of the Greybeards, from Skyrim..
@wolfshanze5980 7 years ago

Out of the 23 minute video, I think about 20 minutes is dedicated to mountains, trees and plate tectonics, and about 3 minutes to fish.
@wwn1970 7 years ago

The evolution of trees (featuring fish).
@Jacoblaggard 5 years ago

mom:are you studying? me:
@macnutz4206 5 years ago

It is interesting to see how the evolution of plants in the seas led to plants clinging to the edges of the water, to the evolution of trees that played a role in the evolution of fish.
@logandagamer4224 7 years ago

fish be like:omg I want to be a land creature goes to shore:help help I'm dying dies
@evilnorman9978 6 years ago

This is part of the "Miracle Planet" series seen on The Discovery Science channel.
@karlbroman8538 5 years ago

The use of the term “strategy” is inappropriate, these early fish were not strategizing, just evolving.
@biffedya 7 years ago

when they evolved to a nice coating of beer batter and chips is when I most appreciated their life cycle
@swapertxking 6 years ago

The problem with documentaries about paleontology is that the facts aren’t constantly being tossed. We discovered recently (few years), that placoderms were the common ancestors of all tetrapods and fish, simply because they evolved the concept of jaws first and fish that survived the mass extinction that wiped out most placoderms became the fish we have today, but they weren’t an offshoot.
@VictorFursov 6 years ago

Thank you for interesting stories! Best wishes and good luck in your discoveries!
@tfranc347 5 years ago

The fact that there’s 300 million year old tree stumps just hanging out, not covered by sediment among new trees blows my damn mind. This whole video blows my mind for that matter.
@surg23 6 years ago

While quite vague, it was a lovely documentary. Extremely good CGI and great narration and music. Just awesome!
@davidwhite4023 2 years ago

Such a beautiful and educational piece of science, art and other knowledges. Thank you for this!
@Howlingburd19 6 years ago

Honestly, Dunklelosteus is one of the scariest animals in prehistoric history!
@LumosVeil 7 years ago

Is getting sad over fish dying.
@jonstfrancis 7 years ago

When I was a kid back in the 70s I had a picture of Eusthenopteron walking out the water onto dry land.