The terrifying ‘living fossil’ that has been around for 150 million years has a killer jaw

GARS has been classified as one of the oldest living fossils in a recently published study.

The study, published in the journal Evolution and conducted by researchers at Yale, looked at gars for their incredibly slow evolution.

Gars have been classified as one of the oldest living fossils in a recently published studyCredit: Getty

“We show that the slow molecular evolution of Gars has hampered their rate of speciation,” said Thomas J. Near, professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Yale’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences and senior author of the paper. Phys.Org.

“Fundamentally, this is the first example in which science shows that a lineage, through some intrinsic aspect of biology, meets the criteria of living fossils.”

THE GAR

Gars, one of the oldest groups of ray-finned fish, belongs to the family Lepisosteidae.

The fish have elongated bodies and elongated jaws with long, sharp teeth.

The largest type of gar – the alligator gar – often grows to a length of more than 8 feet and can weigh more than 100 pounds.

LIVING FOSSILS

All jawed vertebrates, which include about 60,000 species, have the slowest molecular evolution.

Basically, this means that their genome has changed very little since their ancestors emerged about 150 million years ago.

“Gars are notable for their low anatomical variation,” the study reads.

“The earliest Jurassic fossils are virtually identical to living species, and recognizable members of living genera appear in the fossil record as early as the middle Cretaceous.”

This very small change in their physical form, and compared to extinct ancestors, are two of the three characteristics that make gars a “living fossil,” lead author Chase Brownstein said. Living Science.

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The third is that the species has diversified into a small number of related species.

For the study, researchers used computer analysis to study gene sequences that came from common ancestors.

These are known as orthologs and have helped determine the rate of mutation or gene substitution over time.

“Once a mutation fixes and changes a particular DNA sequence, it becomes a replacement,” Brownstein said.

The researcher added that it is of great importance to identify exactly how gar genomes have remained so stable.

“There is also a mechanism behind the low replacement rate,” he said.

“There is some type of device that we think is probably related to DNA repair.”

The team hopes to analyze their findings further, as this research could provide insight into people’s genetic health – and cancer-related issues in particular.