The Amphioxus
The most interesng was the Amphioxus, or lancelet. It was small, and an abysmall swimmer. This little creature, still with us today, is considered to be an ancienct representative of the fish ,a very ancienct one. A lot of special research has gone into finding out everything possible about the shy creature. In truth, it has been estimated that after man and the mouse, the amphioxus is the most closely studied and best known of all animals,
This precious little inhabitant of the seas, just 2 to 2/ inches long, usually lives well-dug into the sand. The only part that emergers is the mouth, with all the tendrils that help it filter water. All the precursors, and the first vertebrates too, all had this same characteristic. It is, in fact, a very primitive way of feeding mere suction and filtration of water, to get the little bits of food supernded there. It will be a long time before we see a more efficient feeding system evolve
As soon as the first vertebrates appeared on the face of the Earth ,a little mystery set in Tne probable forerunner of fish had been small animals with no skeletal structure, slender, transparant. and practically unable to fossilize.