Ancestor of Nearly All Vertebrates Found

Artist's rendition of Metaspriggina.

Nearly all vertebrates today have jaws, we have them, birds have them, reptiles have them, they're a very common feature.  There are a few vertebrates out there that don't have jaws, animals like the lamprey and hagfish.  These are very old creatures, as the original vertebrates didn't have jaws.  Now, scientists believe they have found a species that shows evidence of jaw formation.

The species in question is Metaspriggina, a tiny little fish whose fossil is more than 500 million years old, back during the Cambrian Era, which is when complex life began to appear.  This discovery changes the way scientists look at the evolution of vertebrate animals.  Previously, it was thought that the ancestor of jawed vertebrates was similar to a lamprey because there was a lack of evidence for a ancient ancestral fish that spawned both jawed and jawless vertebrates.  With this discovery, it seems that jawless vertebrates, instead of being the original, are instead a newer offshoot of Metaspriggina. 

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