Ancient chimeras were suction feeders, not shell crushers, new research shows PNASNews
are often flat and therefore difficult to extract information from. From studying the diverse body and tooth shapes, however, researchers already knew that there were far more, more varied species of chimera living in the Carboniferous than there are today.fossil
. They then estimated the location of major muscles and found the anatomy was poorly suited to crushing hard shelled prey. Instead, the researchers believe the animal was more likely to have used the muscle arrangement to expand the throat to take in water and a forward-pointing mouth to orient towards prey.
Suction feeding is a technique used by many animals that live underwater. It involves generating low pressures in the throat to pull in water and prey. To do this effectively, the animal needs to be able to rapidly expand its throat, and point its mouth forward towards prey items. Numerous different aquatic jawed vertebrates, such asand some turtles have evolved specialized anatomies to help them suction feed more effectively.
The suction feeding theory proposed by the team also fits with other evidence including arthropods preserved inside the stomach of other specimens.Dearden Richard P., Evidence for high-performance suction feeding in the Pennsylvanian stem-group holocephalan Iniopera,
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