Back during the Silurian period, from 443 million to 419 million years ago, the significant step in evolution was the emergence of jawed and bony fish. It was a time before the development of animals on land — only plants had yet colonized areas outside the sea.
So what did these jawed-face fish look like?
Chinese scientists, publishing in Nature (see abstract), say they have found what they believe to be the earliest known creature with a face, the 419-million-year-old Entelognathus primordialis.
This fish is a member of an extinct group of fish, but its jaw is much more like that of a modern bony fish. The fish would have grown to about 8 inches long, scientists believe.
Here’s what it looked like:
Now this is truly an extraordinary find, and should provide some insight into the development of sharks and later life that crawled onto land.
Here’s a close-up.
As I marveled at the photos showing what this fish would have looked like, however, I was struck by thoughts about life a long time ago, in an ocean far, far away.
And I couldn’t help but wonder about that other mystery that has haunted scholars since 1980: Where did the Hutts come from, and why are they so fat? I think this finding may shed some new light on that, as well. Here’s a photo of Jabba, the archetypal Hutt:
I was struck by the notion of what Entelognathus primordialis would look like trying to eat a beautiful princess from the planet Alderaan. Here’s my artist’s impression of that:
And so I think we have solved the mystery: Entelognathus primordialis is not only an early progenitor of jawed-bony fish, but of large gastropods with stubby arms, wide cavernous mouths and huge eyes, who controlled a large empire in Hutt Space.