In Depth
Bianchengichthys is a genus of placoderm fish that lived during the Silurian. At the time of its description the genus got a lot of attention because the genus is considered to be close to what we would expect the ancestral link between bony placoderm fish and modern fish forms to have looked like. This is not to suggest that Bianchengichthys is ‘the’ missing link, but the body form of Bianchengichthys does indicate evolutionary transition from older fish forms to the beginning of more modern types.
Further reading
- A new Silurian fish close to the common ancestor of modern gnathostomes. - Current Biology. 31 (16): 3613–3620.e2. - Qiang Li, You-an Zhu, Jing Lu, Yang Chen, Jianhua Wang, Lijian Peng, Guangbiao Wei & Min Zhu - 2021.
