Australia: The Land Where Time Began

A biography of the Australian continent 

Fossil Flatfishes

One of the mysteries of evolution was the origin of flatfishes such as flounder, sole and halibut, of the order Pleuronectiformes. It was a mystery that had been thought about by Charles Darwin. The path taken in the evolution of flatfish from symmetrical fish was for many years a mystery until research that was published in Nature by Matt Friedman revealed the solution in 2008. It was found in the research that 2 fish from the Eocene of Europe showed incomplete orbital migration, 1 eye having moved further to 1 side of the face than the other. It is now known that the process of moving both eyes to the same side of the face occurred by a series of intermediate stages as seen in the 2 Eocene fish Amphistium and Heteronectes.

Sources & Further reading

1. John A Long The Rise of Fishes - 500 Million years of Evolution, University of New South Wales Press, 2011

Links

More about Acanthodians (spiny fins)