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| Gigantic, Ancient Armoured 'B Rex' |
| Gigantic, Ancient Armoured 'B Rex' Fish Discovered
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| UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
, 12-October-2016
6:4:43 AM |
| Move over, T rex! Scientists have discovered B rex - a 370 million-year-old species of giant fish with external, bony armoured plates covering their head, shoulders and front fins.
Researchers identified the new fish from fossils first discovered in 2000 in Canada.
The site features fossils from the Devonian Period, a time predating most dinosaurs by hundreds of millions of years.
The new rex - Latin for "king" - belongs in the group Antiarchi, which are extinct fish.
"Bothriolepis rex (B rex) extends the range of known body sizes for the group Antiarchi," said Jason Downs, research associate at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University in the US.
"The large body size and the thick, dense armour present a unique opportunity to address questions about the lifestyle of this unusual group of armoured swimmers," said Downs, who is also an assistant professor at Delaware Valley University in the US.
B rex's size eclipses the previous king of the antiarchs, Bothriolepis maxima. Its body length is estimated at 1.7 metres - about 30 per cent longer than B maxima's estimated length.
The large, thick plates on B rex's head were found alongside fossils of other species with thick head plates, suggesting that these were necessary to survive the "stabbing bites of large sarcopterygians," which were predatory fish from the same time period
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