A scan of the skull of a 319-million-year-old fossilized fish has led to the discovery of the oldest example of a well-preserved vertebrate brain, shining a new light on the early evolution of bony fish.
The fossil of the skull belonging to the extinct Coccocephalus wildi was found in a coal mine in England more than a century ago, according to researchers of the study published in the journal Nature on Wednesday.
The fossil is the only known specimen of the fish species so scientists from the University of Michigan in the US and the University of Birmingham in the UK used the nondestructive imaging technique of computed tomography (CT) scanning to look inside its skull and examine its internal bodily structure.
