Exceptional fossil preservation and evolution of the ray-finned fish brain

Brain anatomy provides key evidence for the relationships between ray-finned fishes(1), but two major limitations obscure our understanding of neuroanatomical evolution in this major vertebrate group. First, the deepest branching living lineages are separated from the group's common ancestor by hundreds of millions of years, with indications that aspects of their brain morphology-like other aspects of their anatomy(2,3)-are specialized relative to primitive conditions. Second, there are no direct constraints on brain morphology in the earliest ray-finned fishes beyond the coarse picture provided by cranial endocasts: natural or virtual infillings of void spaces within the skull(4-8). Here we report brain and cranial nerve soft-tissue preservation in Coccocephalus wildi, an approximately 319-million-year-old ray-finned fish. This example of a well-preserved vertebrate brain provides a window into neural anatomy deep within ray-finned fish phylogeny. Coccocephalus indicates a more complicated pattern of brain evolution than suggested by living species alone, highlighting cladistian apomorphies(1) and providing temporal constraints on the origin of traits uniting all extant ray-finned fishes(1,9). Our findings, along with a growing set of studies in other animal groups(10-12), point to the importance of ancient soft tissue preservation in understanding the deep evolutionary assembly of major anatomical systems outside of the narrow subset of skeletal tissues(13-15).

Automated summary

The study focuses on the brain and cranial nerve preservation of a 319-million-year-old ray-finned fish, Coccocephalus wildi. The findings reveal a more complex pattern of brain evolution in ray-finned fishes than previously thought, providing insights into the deep evolutionary assembly of major anatomical systems. The research highlights the importance of ancient soft tissue preservation for understanding the evolution of anatomical structures beyond skeletal tissues.