Question 1

How do you say Materpiscis?

Accepted Answer

Materpiscis is pronounced MAY-ter-PIH-sis. Break it into two parts: MAY-ter, which sounds like the word 'later' but starting with M, and PIH-sis, which rhymes with 'miss.' The stress falls on the first syllable, MAY. A good memory trick is to remember it means 'mother fish,' and MAY sounds like the name Mae, a very motherly name.

Question 2

What does Materpiscis mean?

Accepted Answer

The name Materpiscis comes directly from Latin and means 'mother fish.' The word mater is the Latin word for mother, which is also where English words like 'maternal' and 'maternity' come from. Piscis is the Latin word for fish, the same root that gives us the zodiac sign Pisces. Scientists chose this name deliberately to honor the fact that this fish is the oldest known vertebrate to give birth to live young.

Question 3

Why is Materpiscis such a big deal?

Accepted Answer

Materpiscis holds the record as the oldest known vertebrate to give birth to live young rather than laying eggs, a record that goes back 375 to 380 million years. Before this fossil was discovered in 2008, scientists thought viviparity, which means carrying and nourishing a live baby inside the body, only appeared much later in vertebrate history. The fossil even preserves the mineralized remains of an umbilical cord still connecting the mother to her embryo, which is something no other fossil this old has ever shown.

Question 4

Was Materpiscis related to dinosaurs?

Accepted Answer

Materpiscis was not related to dinosaurs at all. It was a placoderm, a type of armored fish that went extinct at the end of the Devonian period, about 359 million years ago, roughly 130 million years before the first dinosaurs appeared. Placoderms were actually jawed fish that were more distantly related to modern fish than sharks are, representing their own unique branch of vertebrate life. They ruled the seas for about 70 million years before disappearing completely.

Question 5

Who found Materpiscis?

Accepted Answer

The Materpiscis fossil was formally described and named in 2008 by paleontologist John Long of Museum Victoria in Melbourne, Australia, along with colleagues Gavin Young, Zerina Johanson, and Tim Senden. The specimen came from the Gogo Formation in Western Australia, a famous fossil site. John Long named the species attenboroughi after Sir David Attenborough, the famous British naturalist, because Attenborough had showcased the Gogo Formation in his 1979 documentary Life on Earth.

Question 6

What did Materpiscis eat?

Accepted Answer

Materpiscis was almost certainly a carnivore that ate hard-shelled invertebrates. As a ptyctodontid placoderm, it had broad crushing tooth plates instead of sharp pointed teeth, which are perfectly suited for cracking open mollusks, brachiopods, and small crustaceans. It was not a fast open-water hunter but more likely a slow, deliberate bottom-feeder that foraged along the seafloor in the warm shallow seas of the Late Devonian, similar in lifestyle to modern rays and chimaerae.

Question 7

Where was Materpiscis found?

Accepted Answer

The only known specimen of Materpiscis was found in the Gogo Formation in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. The Gogo Formation is one of the most important fossil fish sites in the world, famous for producing three-dimensionally preserved Late Devonian fish because the fossils form inside limestone nodules that protect them from being crushed flat. This exceptional preservation is exactly why the mineralized umbilical cord inside the Materpiscis specimen survived for 375 million years.

Question 8

Are there other prehistoric fish that gave birth to live young?

Accepted Answer

Yes, and Materpiscis was actually the discovery that opened the door to finding more of them. After the 2008 paper, scientists went back and examined other placoderms from the Gogo Formation more carefully. Species like Incisoscutum ritchiei were also found to show evidence of viviparity. This suggests that live birth may have been quite common among placoderms as a whole, which is remarkable because it means the ancestors of all modern jawed vertebrates, including us, may have had live-bearing relatives swimming around over 375 million years ago.

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