史前巨魚遊大海

史前巨魚遊大海
Giant fish swam prehistoric seas
Page last updated at 19:12 GMT, Thursday, 18 February 2010

Leedsichthys was a giant filter-feeder in prehistoric oceans
利茲魚在史前海洋是一種巨大的濾食者

Prehistoric seas were filled with giant plankton-eating fish which died out at the same time as the dinosaurs, new fossil evidence suggests.
史前海洋充滿了巨大的，以浮游生物為食糧的魚類，它們在相同的時間如恐龍般死哂，新的化石提證。
Scientists from Glasgow, Oxford and the United States have identified fossil evidence which shows the fish existed between 66 and 172 million years ago.
從格拉斯哥，牛津大學和美國來的科學家已辨明化石證據，表明魚類在六千六百萬和一億七千二百萬年前之間已存在。
They believe it may be a "missing piece in the evolutionary story of fish, mammals and ocean ecosystems".
他們相信它可能是“在魚類、哺乳動物和海洋生態系統進化的故事中失踪的一片。”。
The findings of the research are published in the journal, Science.
研究的發現是在'科學'雜誌發表。
The international team which carried out the study included academics from Glasgow and Oxford Universities, DePaul University in Chicago, Fort Hays University in Kansas and the University of Kansas.

The project began in Glasgow, with a review of the remains of the giant Jurassic fish Leedsichthys, in conjunction with the excavation of a new specimen of this creature in Peterborough.

Scientists viewed Leedsichthys as an isolated example of a giant filter feeder in the oceans during the age of dinosaurs.

But there was a gap in the fossil record between it and the first appearance of modern filter-feeders, some 100 million years later.

Dr Jeff Liston, from Glasgow University, ran the excavation in Peterborough and found the new specimen to be an anomaly.

"The breakthrough came when we discovered additional fossils, similar to Leedsichthys, but from much younger rocks," he said.

新發現的化石
New fossils

"These specimens indicated that there were giant filter-feeding fishes for much longer than we thought.
“這些標本顯示，有巨大的濾食性魚類比我們預想的時間更長久。
"We then started to go back to museum collections, and we began finding suspension-feeding fish fossils from all round the world, often unstudied or misidentified."

Several of the most important new fossils - all from the same extinct bony fish family as Leedsichthys - came from sites in Kansas.
有幾種最重要的新發現化石 - 都來自同一個滅絕的硬骨魚類家庭即利茲魚 - 來自堪薩斯州的網站。
Other remains originated as far afield as Dorset and Kent in the UK, and in Japan.

Bonnerichthys was identified from a fossil found in Kansas
Bonnerichthys是被從堪薩斯州發現的化石所確定

Dr Liston added: "The fact that creatures of this kind were missing from the fossil record for over 100 million years seemed peculiar.

"What we have demonstrated here is that a long dynasty of giant bony fish filled this space in time for more than 100 million years.

"It was only after these fish vanished from the ecosystem that mammals and cartilaginous fish such as manta rays, basking sharks, whale sharks began to adapt to that ecological role."

Dr Liston said the findings had "implications for our understanding of biological productivity in modern oceans, and how that productivity has changed over time".

One of the best preserved Kansas specimens had previously been interpreted as similar to a fanged predatory swordfish.

When members of the team began to clean the specimen, they found a toothless gaping mouth, with an extensive network of thin elongate bony plates to extract huge quantities of microscopic plankton.

The team named this four to five metre-long fish Bonnerichthys, in honour of the Kansas family who discovered the fossil.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/glasgow_and_west/8522789.stm
世界最古老的魚亮相世博非洲聯合館
Disc: http://www5.uwants.com/viewthread.php?tid=9477957&page=1&extra=page%3D1#pid135327189