In London, a student in undergraduate of Bristol University, Britain has found the feeding habits and nature of living of a Jurassic fish of 200 million years old.
The Jurassic era fish named as Dapedium was found 200 million years ago as one of many new groups of fishes. Fiann Smithwick said, “My work indicates that Dapedium was well adapted to crush shells, feeding on bivalves and other hard-shelled creatures that it could scrape from the sea floor”.
The fish is deep-bodied, shaped like a dinner plate in side view. It could grow to over half a meter in length as per the reports said from the survey and experiments.
The mouth of fish is tiny with jutting front teeth and masses of pebble-shaped teeth in the back.
In the research of the student, Smithwick collected and examined 89 specimens of Dapedium. He also measured the positions and lengths of the jaw bones in his research process.
His experiments included many things and calculated the positions, orientations of jaw muscles. The results after examining proved that Dapedium is a shell crusher. As its jaws can move slowly, but strongly, it could have prey that has strong shell. The fish that is discovered could match the modern sea breams. In the journal Palaeontology, one can see complete details regarding Jurassic fish.