Lack of oxygen forced fishes' 1st breath

A global drop in oxygen levels may have been the driver that led ancient fish to leave the water and evolve into the first air-breathing animals on land, suggests an Australian study.

The finding, published Wednesday in the Royal Society's journal Biology Letters, challenges the accepted wisdom about the environment from which tetrapods — the fish-like ancestors of land animals — first moved onto land.

Doctoral student Alice Clement, from the Australian National University's Research School of Earth Sciences, and Museum Victoria researcher Prof. John Long, now based at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, make the claim based on the fossilized remains of a fish that lived about 375 million years ago.

The new species of lungfish, known as Rhinodipterus, was found in the Gogo formation in northern Western Australia.

Clement says a number of features found in modern lungfish that are important to its air-gulping behaviour were found in the fossil.

These included a long mouth cavity and cranial ribs attached to the base of the skull.

She says that in modern lungfish, the longer mouth cavity enables them to hold a bubble of air in their mouths, while the cranial ribs anchor the pectoral girdle during air gulping.

Yet while modern lungfish exist in freshwater environments, the Rhinodipterus lived in the ocean.

"This runs counter to the standard theory that fish evolved the ability to breathe air once they moved to freshwater habitats [because marine water is more oxygenated than freshwater]," said Clement.

The researchers suggest low global oxygen levels during this period, known as the Devonian, may explain the evolution of air-gulping characteristics.

Previous studies have shown oxygen levels fell as low as 12 per cent of the total atmosphere. Today, global oxygen levels are about 20 per cent.

via CBC News - Technology & Science - Lack of oxygen forced fishes' 1st breath.