Artist's reconstruction of Weberian apparatus in fossil fish (IMAGE)

University of California - Berkeley

Artist's reconstruction of Weberian apparatus in fossil fish

Caption

An artist's reconstruction of the Weberian apparatus in a 67 million-year-old fossil fish. The Weberian structure (gold-colored bones at center) arose from a rib (shown in gray attached to several back bones in the spine) and connect the fish's air bladder (left) with the inner ear (right). The bony structure endows the fish with more sensitive hearing and is still present today in two-thirds of all freshwater fish species. The background depicts the various fish lineages that evolved after the supercontinent Pangea broke up.

Credit

Ken Naganawa for UC Berkeley

Usage Restrictions

Artwork commissioned by Juan Liu for all non-commercial usages

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