Ancient Scottish fish gave us the act of sex
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Scientists studying fos
sils have discovered that the intimate act of sexual intercourse
was pioneered by ancient armored fishes, called placoderms, about 385
million years ago in Scotland. In an important discovery in the
evolutionary history of sexual reproduction, the scientists found that
male members of the Microbrachius dicki developed bony L-shaped genital
limbs called claspers to transfer sperm to females.
Females, for their part, developed small paired bones to lock the male organs in place for mating. Placoderms are the earliest vertebrate ancestors of humans.
“Placoderms were once thought to be a dead-end group with no live relatives, but recent studies show that our own evolution is deeply rooted in placoderms and that many of the features we have -such as jaws, teeth and paired limbs -first originated with this group of fishes,“ said John Long, a paleontologist at Flinders University in South Australia who led the research.
This new finding, he added, shows that “they gave us the intimate act of sexual intercourse as well“.
Females, for their part, developed small paired bones to lock the male organs in place for mating. Placoderms are the earliest vertebrate ancestors of humans.
“Placoderms were once thought to be a dead-end group with no live relatives, but recent studies show that our own evolution is deeply rooted in placoderms and that many of the features we have -such as jaws, teeth and paired limbs -first originated with this group of fishes,“ said John Long, a paleontologist at Flinders University in South Australia who led the research.
This new finding, he added, shows that “they gave us the intimate act of sexual intercourse as well“.
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