🎨 RestorationRestoration: Xindong Cui, Matt Friedman, Yilun Yu, You-an Zhu & Min Zhu · CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons Source
Life restorations are artistic reconstructions based on fossil evidence; true coloration and soft-tissue details remain uncertain.
Entelognathus
Entelognathus primordialis (Entelognathus · エンテログナトゥス)
Known only from fossils. The IUCN Red List assesses only species extant since 1500 CE, so fossil taxa are not assigned a category.
💡 Everyday Comparisons for Size, Mass & Speed
- 💡 Smithsonian Magazine introduced this fossil as "the world's oldest fish with a face," spreading the news as a story about the distant roots of human facial bones.
- 💡 The paper explains that the premaxilla and maxilla of the upper jaw and the dentary of the lower jaw resemble those of bony fishes. The jaws and outer facial bones of humans are also inherited from the same bony fish lineage (Comparison).
Reference standards: coach bus ~12 m, mid-size car ~4.9 m, compact car ~1 t, basketball hoop 3.05 m, credit card 8.56 cm.
📖 1. Overview
Entelognathus primordialis (genus Entelognathus) was a placoderm (armored fish) that lived in the seas of China during the Silurian about 419 million years ago, and is the first known case of a placoderm with marginal jawbones previously known only in bony fishes. Published in a 2013 Nature paper, it was reported as the "fish with the oldest face."
🦴 2. Anatomy & Morphology
It resembled bony fishes in having a premaxilla and maxilla in the upper jaw and a dentary in the lower jaw. The front part of its body is well preserved in 3D.
🔍 3. Fossil Record & Paleoecology
It serves as new evidence helping researchers infer what the common ancestor of bony fishes and cartilaginous fishes looked like through the placoderm group.
🇰🇷 4. Connection to Korea
No direct record connecting this species to Korea has been found.
📚 Sources & References
- • Fossil taxon — the IUCN Red List assesses only species living or extinct since 1500
- • paleobiodb.org — basicTaxonInfo
- • wikidata.org — Q14947364
- • commons.wikimedia.org — File:Entelognathus IVPP V32322 cropped.png
- • nature.com — nature12617
- • smithsonianmag.com — this-419-million-year-old-fish-has-the-worlds-oldest-known-f
- • Silhouette: PhyloPic — author not recorded · Public Domain Mark 1.0
Recorded dimensions are widely cited representative estimates from public literature and may vary by study or specimen.