†Simpsonigobius nerimanae gen. et sp. nov. A, holotype, BSPG 1980X1030a; B, paratype, BSPG 1980X1013(2); C, paratype, BSPG 1980X1019a; D, paratype, BSPG 1980X992a. All scale bars = 2 mm.
Today's casual refutation of creationism come in the form of an open access paper in the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology in which a team of researchers from the master program ‘Geobiology and Paleobiology’ led by Bettina Reichenbacher, professor at the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, München, Germany.
In it, the team of three explain how they have identified a new genus of the Gobi family of fishes and so provided critical insight into the evolution of this group of fish.
The fossil of the Simpsonigobius genus was found in 18-million-year-old rocks in Turkey. The significance of their discovery is explained in a Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) press release:
Tell me about the group of fish known as gobies, particularly their evolution and family tree. Gobies, belonging to the family Gobiidae, are a diverse and extensive group of fish. With over 2,000 species in more than 200 genera, they represent one of the largest families of marine fish. Gobies are typically small, with many species measuring less than 10 cm (4 inches) in length. They are distributed worldwide, found in both marine and freshwater environments.
Evolution and Family Tree
Phylogenetic Origins:
Gobies are part of the order Gobiiformes, which also includes several other related families. Their evolutionary history suggests they diverged from other teleost fishes during the early Cretaceous period, around 100 million years ago. This timing coincides with significant marine diversification events, suggesting that gobies evolved as part of a broader radiation of small, benthic fish that exploited new ecological niches.
Adaptive Radiation:
The gobiid family showcases a remarkable example of adaptive radiation, where different species evolved distinct adaptations to thrive in various environments. This has resulted in a wide range of morphological, ecological, and behavioral diversity. For example, some gobies have developed symbiotic relationships with other marine organisms, like the shrimp-goby partnership, where the goby provides a lookout for predators while the shrimp maintains the burrow they share.
Morphological Adaptations:
Gobies exhibit several unique morphological features that have contributed to their success. Many species have fused pelvic fins that form a disc-like sucker, allowing them to anchor themselves to rocks or corals in turbulent waters. This adaptation is particularly useful in intertidal zones and coral reefs where wave action can be strong.
Diversity and Classification:
The family Gobiidae is divided into several subfamilies, including:
- Gobionellinae: Often found in freshwater and brackish environments.
- Gobiinae: The largest subfamily, primarily marine, with species exhibiting a wide range of lifestyles from burrowers to reef dwellers.
- Oxudercinae: Includes mudskippers, which are known for their ability to live and move on land.
- Amblyopinae: Often called worm gobies, they live in burrows in muddy substrates.
Notable Species and Adaptations
Mudskippers (Subfamily: Oxudercinae): Mudskippers are perhaps the most famous gobies due to their amphibious lifestyle. They are capable of breathing through their skin and the lining of their mouth and throat, allowing them to survive out of water for extended periods. Their pectoral fins are adapted for crawling on land, and they can often be seen hopping across mudflats during low tide.
Shrimp Gobies: These gobies form mutualistic relationships with burrowing shrimps. The shrimp digs and maintains a burrow in the sand, which both the shrimp and goby live in. The goby acts as a sentinel, warning the shrimp of approaching predators through tactile signals.
Clown Gobies: Clown gobies are small, brightly colored fish that live among the branches of corals. They are known for their ability to change color and pattern to blend in with their surroundings, an adaptation that provides camouflage from predators.
Ecological Importance
Gobies play crucial roles in their ecosystems. As prey, they are an important food source for many larger fish and marine animals. As predators, they help control populations of smaller invertebrates. Their burrowing behavior also contributes to the aeration of the substrate, which can enhance the health of benthic environments.
Conclusion
The goby family Gobiidae represents a fascinating example of evolutionary success through diversification and adaptation. Their wide range of habitats, behaviors, and symbiotic relationships highlight their ecological significance and evolutionary ingenuity. Understanding the evolution and adaptive strategies of gobies provides valuable insights into the mechanisms of species diversification and the ecological dynamics of marine and freshwater systems.
Gobies or Gobioidei are one of the most species-rich groups of marine and freshwater fish in Europe. Spending most of their lives on the bottom of shallow waterbodies, they make substantial contributions to the functioning of many ecosystems. With the identification of a new genus of a fossil freshwater goby, students of the international master program ‘Geobiology and Paleobiology ’ at LMU and paleontologist Bettina Reichenbacher, professor at the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at LMU, have made a discovery that provides critical insights into the evolutionary history of these fish.
Measuring up to 34 mm, the small fish of the new genus †Simpsonigobius were discovered in 18-million-year-old rocks in Turkey and are marked by a distinct combination of morphological features, including otoliths (hearing stones) with a unique shape.
Fossil fish of the new genus †Simpsonigobius.Picture: Moritz Dirnberger
Modern research techniques elucidate position in family tree
To determine the relationships of †Simpsonigobius within the gobioid phylogenetic tree, the researchers utilized a “total-evidence” phylogenetic dataset, which they enhanced in order to combine a total of 48 morphological characters and genetic data from five genes for 48 living and 10 fossil species. In addition, the team employed “tip-dating” for fossil gobioid species for the first time. This is a phylogenetic method in which the age of the fossils (= tips) included in the phylogenetic tree is used to infer the timing of the evolutionary history of the entire group.
The results show that the new genus is the oldest skeleton-based member of the family Oxudercidae – which is classified among the “modern” gobies (families Gobiidae and Oxudercidae) – and the oldest freshwater goby within this modern group. The tip-dating analysis estimated the emergence of the Gobiidae at 34.1 million years ago and that of the Oxudercidae at 34.8 million years ago, which is consistent with previous dating studies using other methods. Moreover, stochastic habitat mapping, in which the researchers incorporated fossil gobies for the first time, revealed that the gobies probably possessed broad salinity tolerance at the beginning of their evolutionary history, which challenges previous assumptions.
The discovery of †Simpsonigobius not only adds a new genus to the Gobioidei, but also provides vital clues about the evolutionary timeline and habitat adaptations of these diverse fishes. Our research highlights the importance of analyzing fossil records using modern methods to achieve a more accurate picture of evolutionary processes.
Professor Bettina Reichenbacher, corresponding author
Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Munich, Germany.
The findings are expected to pave the way for further studies on gobioid evolution and the role of environmental factors in shaping their diversity.
Moritz Dirnberger, first author
Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Munich, Germany.
AbstractAll creationists need to ignore here is the fact that this extinct fish lived 18 million years before the Universe existed according to their core superstition.
The extant gobioid fishes form a highly diverse group comprised of eight families and over 2000 species. They pose many taxonomic and phylogenetic challenges, particularly when working with fossils. Here we introduce †Simpsonigobius gen. nov., a new freshwater gobioid of small size (≤ 34 mm) from the Lower Miocene of Turkey, and analyse its relationships using a total evidence phylogenetic framework from a previous study that we have significantly improved and expanded upon. †Simpsonigobius gen. nov. exhibits a unique combination of characters, including five branchiostegal rays, a palatine with a weakly ‘T’-shaped head, an additional ray in the anal fin relative to the second dorsal fin, and rounded-to-quadrangular otoliths with a pronounced posterodorsal projection. Undated and tip-dated analyses in a total evidence Bayesian framework, utilizing our updated and expanded data set (48 extant in-group species, 10 fossil species, 48 morphological characters, data from five genes), indicate its relationship with the Oxudercidae, which is reinforced by our comparative morphological analysis. Our results reveal †Simpsonigobius gen. nov. as the oldest skeleton-based member of the Oxudercidae and the oldest freshwater species of the clade Gobiidae + Oxudercidae. The tip-dating analysis estimates divergence ages for Gobiidae (34.13 Ma) and Oxudercidae (34.83 Ma), which are in accordance with previous node-dating analyses. Additionally, based on our time-calibrated tree, we conduct the first reconstruction of ancestral habitat types employing stochastic character mapping and incorporating fossil taxa. The outcome reveals that the ancestor of the Gobioidei likely did not exclusively inhabit freshwater environments, challenging previous assumptions and emphasizing the importance of considering combined habitat types among early-splitting extant taxa. Our study represents the first simultaneous analysis of fossil and extant gobioid species, along with dating of the tree, and our data emphasize the ability of this approach to place gobioid fossils within a reliable chronological and phylogenetic context.
http://zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org.pub:5000841F-1836-43D8-BE75-4C090A478566
Introduction
The Gobioidei (‘gobioids’) is a suborder of the Teleostei, nested within the Percomorpha (Betancur-R et al., 2017). Gobioids encompass 325 genera with around 2330 species (Fricke et al., 2023) and are one of the most speciose clades among vertebrate suborders. These generally small and mainly benthic fishes are widely distributed, mostly in marine but also in brackish, freshwater and semi-terrestrial habitats (Patzner et al., 2011). In addition, they play an important ecological role by contributing to the recycling of nutrients and forming symbiotic relationships with other organisms, especially in coral reefs (Brandl et al., 2018; Patzner et al., 2011). Currently, gobioids are subdivided into the extinct family †Pirskeniidae Obrhelová, 1961 and eight extant families (Nelson et al., 2016; Reichenbacher et al., 2020), among which the Gobiidae + Oxudercidae represent the most derived clade (Fig. 1). The closest relative of the Gobiidae + Oxudercidae is the Thalasseleotrididae, a small family which now consists of three genera and four species, all of which are restricted to the south-west Pacific (Goatley & Tornabene, 2022).
Molecular data strongly support the monophyly of extant gobioid families, and phylogenetic relationships between gobioid families are well established (Agorreta et al., 2013; Thacker, 2009; Thacker et al., 2015). However, only a few morphological synapomorphies are known for members of specific gobioid families, with synapomorphies remaining unknown for some families, such as the Odontobutidae or Oxudercidae (Hoese & Gill, 1993; Reichenbacher et al., 2018.1). This scarcity is due to various factors, including the tendency of derived gobioids to reduce bony structures, frequent occurrences of homoplasies and plesiomorphies, and the lack of comprehensive morphological studies, particularly with large data sets. Among those synapomorphies that define the Gobiidae + Oxudercidae are five branchiostegal rays – as opposed to six in all other extant families (A. C. Gill & Mooi, 2012; Hoese & Gill, 1993) and seven in the extinct family †Pirskeniidae (Fig. 1). The sole synapomorphy that unites the members of the Thalasseleotrididae is the presence of a long and broad membrane between the hyoid bar and ceratobranchial 1 (A. C. Gill & Mooi, 2012) – a character that is extremely unlikely to be preserved in a fossil.
The earliest known fossil gobioids date to the Eocene, with †Carlomonnius quasigobius Bannikov and Carnevale, 2016.1 from the lower Eocene of Monte Bolca (Northern Italy) and †Paralates chapelcorneri Gierl and Reichenbacher, 2017.1 from the upper Eocene of the Isle of Wight on the south coast of England representing the oldest records of skeleton-based species (Bannikov & Carnevale, 2016.1; Gierl & Reichenbacher, 2017.1). Several other extinct gobioid genera and species have been established on the basis of both skeletal and otolith material, especially from the Miocene (e.g. Lin et al., 2017.2; Reichenbacher & Bannikov, 2022.1, 2023.1; Schwarzhans et al., 2017.3; Schwarzhans, Brzobohatý, et al., 2020.1), but also from Oligocene strata (Gierl et al., 2013.1; Marramà et al., 2022.2; Přikryl, 2014), as well as from Pliocene and Pleistocene sediments (Agiadi et al., 2018.2, 2019, 2020.2; Schwarzhans, Agiadi, et al., 2020.3). Notably, many of these fossil taxa are still lacking a phylogenetic context because comparative morphology does not always enable their attribution at higher systematic (familial) levels. This situation arises not only because synapomorphies may be absent but also because a given fossil taxon may exhibit characters that are known to be typical for two (or more) of the extant families (see e.g. Bannikov & Carnevale, 2016.1; Gierl & Reichenbacher, 2015.1, 2017.1; Reichenbacher et al., 2020). In such cases, a promising way forward is performing a total evidence phylogenetic analysis by combining molecular and morphological data from extant species with morphological data derived from fossil species (see López-Antoñanzas et al., 2022.3). However, only one study has so far applied such a total evidence approach to gobioid fossils (Gierl et al., 2022.4).
The present study focuses on a little-known fossil freshwater gobioid from the Lower Miocene at Karalar Köyü in western Turkey (Anatolia) (Fig. 2A, B). This fossil represents the oldest freshwater gobioid from the Miocene and is also the sole skeleton-based gobioid record from Anatolia. In the only previous study of this material (Rückert-Ülkümen, 2000), it was attributed to Pomatoschistus cf. bleicheri (Sauvage, 1883). This generic assignment, however, raises some doubts, as most extant species of the genus Pomatoschistus T. N. Gill, 1863 (family Oxudercidae) are marine (P. J. Miller, 1986; Tougard et al., 2014.1, 2021). Moreover, other fossil specimens that had been named ‘Pomatoschistus bleicheri (Sauvage, 1883)’ or ‘P. cf. bleicheri (Sauvage, 1883)’ in earlier studies are nowadays interpreted as members of the extinct gobioid genus †Paralates Sauvage, 1883, whose family relationships could not be resolved in previous work (Gierl et al., 2022.4; Gierl & Reichenbacher, 2017.1).
The primary objectives of our study are (i) to present a taxonomic revision of ‘Pomatoschistus cf. bleicheri’ from the Lower Miocene of Karalar Köyü and (ii) to analyse its phylogenetic relationships using both an undated and a tip-dated total evidence-based Bayesian framework. For the latter, we enhanced the morphological portion of the existing total evidence matrix (Gierl et al., 2022.4: 29 extant, 10 fossil gobioids, 48 characters) on the basis of a comprehensive literature review, and enlarged the taxon sample by adding morphological and molecular data for another 19 extant gobioid species. Our overall aim is to contribute to a better understanding of the evolutionary history of present-day Gobioidei by providing robust phylogenetic interpretations of their ancient members.Figure 2. Geographic and palaeogeographic overview. A, geographic map of south-eastern Europe and Turkey (rectangle indicates map shown in B); B, map of Western Turkey showing location of the fossiliferous site Karalar Köyü (star); C, Early Miocene (20.5–19 Ma) palaeogeography of Central Europe and Western Asia and position of Karalar Köyü (star).Sources: A, B, https://www.simplemappr.net/; Imagery ©2022 TerraMetrics, Map data ©2022 Google; C, modified from Popov et al. (2004, map 4).
Geological setting
The fossil-bearing site Karalar Köyü is located in western Turkey, near the village of Karalar, about 27 km NNE of Bergama (Fig. 2A, B). It exposes an approximately 3 m thick lacustrine succession, which consists of light grey to brownish limestones and shaley mudstones of the Zeytindağ Group (Kaya, 1981; Kaya et al., 2007; Rückert-Ülkümen, 2000). Karalar Köyü has been correlated with the Lower Miocene mammal zone MN3 (c. 17.2–19.5 Ma) based on fossil assemblages of rodents and lagomorphs from time-equivalent sediments in the same region (Göktaş & Ünay, 2000.1; Kaya et al., 2007). In terms of palaeogeography, Karalar Köyü was located on the huge lowland of present-day Turkey and western Asia that existed between the Eastern Paratethys Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean Basin in the Early Miocene (Popov et al., 2004) (Fig. 2C). Apart from ‘Pomatoschistus cf. bleicheri’, the cyprinid fish †Palaeoleuciscus etilius (Rückert-Ülkümen, 1960) and well-preserved plant remains have been recovered from the Lower Miocene sediments at Karalar Köyü (Gaudant, 1993.1; Rückert-Ülkümen, 2000).Figure 4. Head details of †Simpsonigobius nerimanae gen. et sp. nov. A, paratype BSPG 1980X1019a, head with strongly recrystallized otoliths in situ, scale bar = 2 mm; B, paratype BSPG 1980X1006b, otolith (recrystallized) preserved in situ, scale bar = 0.5 mm; C, paratype BSPG 1980X1020(2), photo (C1) and interpretative drawing (C2) of hyoid bar, bones from left side are indicated with ‘(l)’, scale bar = 1 mm. Abbreviations: br, branchiostegal ray; ce, ceratohyal; cl, cleithrum; pop, preopercle.Figure 5. Details of skull and lower jaw of †Simpsonigobius nerimanae gen. et sp. nov. (photos and interpretative drawings). A1, 2, paratype BSPG 1980X1019 showing palatopterygoquadrate complex and weakly ‘T’-shaped palatine (pal, arrows indicate ethmoid and maxillary processes). B1, 2, paratype BSPG 1980X992a exhibiting left and right dentary (d) and angulo-articular (aa). C1, 2, paratype BSPG 1980X1022 displaying premaxilla with well-preserved ascending (asc) and articular (art) processes, partly preserved postmaxillary process (pmp) and remains of teeth. Abbreviations: aa, angulo-articular; art, articular process; asc, ascending process; d, dentary; ect, ectopterygoid; fr, frontal bones; mpt, metapterygoid; mx, maxilla; pal, palatine; pmp, postmaxillary process; pmx, premaxilla; pop, preopercle; psph, parasphenoid; q, quadrate; sy, symplectic; vo, vomer. Left bones are indicated with ‘(l)’; all scale bars = 0.5 mm.
And for those who like to delude themselves that biologists are about to give up the theory of evolution and adopt their childish magical superstition, like their cult leaders have been assuring them is about to happen any day now real soon, for the last 50 years, there is the evidence that these scientists show not the slightest signs of doing so.
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