Humansevolved from apes. This is what we learned in biology class. But what came-组卷网

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Humans evolved from apes. This is what we learned in biology class. But what came before apes? Chinese scientists have discovered fossils that could enrich the evolutionary story of how humans evolved from fish.

According to four articles published in the journal Nature in late September, Chinese researchers found fish fossils that provide the “missing link” about the origin of the jaw (下颌), a key trait that 99.8 percent of vertebrate species (脊椎动物) have.

Zhu Min, a lead researcher of the studies from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, told China Daily that the findings drew a large amount of interest in the science world due to the importance of jaws in animal evolution. However, the rise of the jaw had been a mystery due to a lack of sufficient fossil evidence to support that jawed vertebrates lived 450 million years ago.

The latest findings made by Zhu’s team presented a set of five surprisingly well-preserved fish fossils that included three whole-bodied fish, helping scientists paint a more accurate evolutionary picture of the origin of the jaw. The fish fossils were discovered at two sites in Chongqing and Guizhou, whose strata (地层) date back to the Silurian Period (志留纪) that began around 440 million years ago.

These fossils show that jawed fish were already thriving in the world’s ancient oceans at that time. Later on, more diverse and larger jawed fish evolved and began to spread around the world, paving the way for some fish to eventually go on land and evolve into other animals—including humans.

“These fossils provide an unprecedented opportunity to peek into the ‘dawn of fish’ and help scientists trace many human body structures back to these ancient fish, thus filling some key gaps in the evolutionary history of how fish evolved into humans,” Zhu said.

【小题1】What is the significance of the newly discovered fossils?

A．They gave new clues to the origins of fish.

B．They provided new evidence on human evolution.

C．They are a newly discovered species of jawed fish.

D．They defined the time vertebrate species appeared.

【小题2】What can we learn about the fish fossils found by Zhu’s team?

A．They were discovered in Chongqing.

B．They include five whole-bodied ancient fish.

C．They can be traced back to the Silurian Period.

D．They proved fish were the earliest vertebrate species.

【小题3】What does the underlined word “thriving” probably mean in the second-to-last paragraph?

A．Booming.