Sharks have roamed the open seas for close to half a billion years and have witnessed the Earth’s evolution from a primordial ...

‘We think early sharks developed a cartilaginous skeleton because it better suited their lifestyle,’ explains Emma Bernard, our Fossil Fish Curator. ‘Being light and more flexible than bone, cartilage ...

Sharks have been swimming the seas for over 400 million years, long before bony fish and land animals evolved. Over time, their cartilaginous skeletons have proven to be perfectly suited for ...

and chimaeras are cartilaginous fish, meaning their skeletons are made of cartilage, not bone. Their skin is covered with denticles, tooth-like scales that differ from the scales of bony fish.

All of that and still boneless. “We think early sharks developed a cartilaginous skeleton because it better suited their lifestyle,” Emma Bernard, Fossil Fish Curator for Natural History ...

wormlike fish called the yunnanozoan (Yunnanozoan livitidum) flourished around what is now southwestern China. Based on the numerous fossils that have been found, this sea creature seemingly had ...

Described as the 'least shark-like shark', it is thought to have risen from within a group of fish known as acanthodians or spiny sharks. 'Acanthodians are not at all shark-like in shape, for example ...

The find expands our understanding of the early developmental stages of rays and their evolutionary branches.

When fishes, the first vertebrates, evolved, the gene network that builds gill cartilage from those invertebrates was recycled to make fish gills, even as fish evolved a new type of bony skeleton.