![\"Life](\"https:\/\/cdn.sci.news\/images\/enlarge14\/image_15125e-Asioaspis-brachyotus.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nLife restoration of Asioaspis brachyotus. Image credit: Zhang et al., doi: 10.19615\/j.cnki.2096-9899.260113.<\/p>\n
The newly described fish, named Asioaspis brachyotus, lived in what is now southwestern China approximately 419 million years ago (Lochkovian stage of the Early Devonian epoch).<\/p>\n
The species belongs to the Galeaspida<\/a>, an extinct group of bony-headed, jawless fishes found only in China and northern Vietnam.<\/p>\n These creatures are more closely related to jawed vertebrates, including humans, than to living jawless fishes such as lampreys and hagfish.<\/p>\n \u201cGaleaspids have long been central to understanding the origin of key gnathostome traits, e.g. jaws, spiracle, and paired appendages, because they share a closer phylogenetic affinity with jawed vertebrates than extant jawless fishes,\u201d said Dr. Zhi-Kun Gai, a researcher with the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and colleagues.<\/p>\n \u201cAlthough restricted to China and northern Vietnam, these armored jawless fishes displayed remarkable morphological disparity and taxonomic diversity during the Siluro-Devonian, with 19 families, 74 genera, and 100 species described to date.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey are cladistically classified into two basal orders, Hanyangaspidiformes and Dayongaspiformes, and three major orders, Eugaleaspiformes, Polybranchiaspiformes, and Huananaspiformes.\u201d<\/p>\n The fossilized material of Asioaspis brachyotus was collected from the Xishancun Formation near the Miandian Reservoir in Qujing, Yunnan province.<\/p>\n \u201cThe collection includes three nearly complete headshields and three incomplete headshields,\u201d the paleontologists explained.<\/p>\n Asioaspis brachyotus\u2019 oval headshield measured roughly 4.7 to 6 cm (2 inches) in maximum length.<\/p>\n The shield had serrated edges, a coarse granular surface and a very broad rim on its underside.<\/p>\n The researchers counted at least 12 pairs of gill pockets, though incomplete preservation prevented an exact count.<\/p>\n