Scientists call these creatures “failed evolutionary experiment”.
Mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous period led to the disappearance of about 75% of all species on Earth. This created a vacant niche in the ecosystem for the emergence of new creatures.
Researchers from the University of Michigan (USA) described newly discovered species of prehistoric fish and came to the conclusion that one of these niches something was the “saber-toothed anchovies”.
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the fish, named Monosmilus chureloides, reached a length of about a meter, 10 times the size of modern anchovies.
the oldest fossils “Sabretooth anchovy” 54 million years, and the most “fresh” — 45 million, This means that the unusual fish there was relatively short-lived, says the study, published in Royal Society Open Science.
They came around the same time as the ancestors of tuna, Barracuda and mackerel. But if these species have survived, “Sabretooth anchovy” was a “failed evolutionary experiment”.
most Likely, Monosmilus chureloides disappeared, unable to compete with other predators. Its role could play and change of climate about 40 million years ago.
Anna Lysenko
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