Origin of jaws - the greatest unsolved mystery of early vertebrate evolution

2008年，在澳大利亚西北部著名的Gogo化石沉积物中发现的3.8亿年前的“鱼妈妈”身上发现了一个未出生的胚胎，这吸引了澳大利亚、美国和中国科学家的合作，开展了一项新的国际合作。该团队将研究来自澳大利亚中部和南部的壮观的新化石，中国是已知的最古老的有下巴和坚硬骨骼的脊椎动物。创新的3D X射线计算机断层扫描和澳大利亚同步加速器将被用于研究古老的细胞和保存下来的软组织结构，以寻找交配和内部受精--就像现代哺乳动物一样--可能起源于颌骨最初进化的证据。

The 2008 discovery of an unborn embryo in the 380 million-year-old "Mother Fish" from the famous Gogo fossil deposit in NW Australia has attracted a collaboration of Australian, American and Chinese scientists to a new international collaboration. The team will study spectacular new fossils from central Australia and southern China, the oldest known back-boned animals with jaws and a hard skeleton. Innovative 3D X-ray computer tomography, and the Australian synchrotron, will be used to investigate ancient cells and preserved soft tissue structures, to search for evidence that copulation and internal fertilization, as in modern mammals, might have originated when jaws first evolved.