About 150 years ago, the fossil of a fish known as the Dunk was discovered. Researchers estimated at the time that it was so large that it was almost the size of a bus. Now, a new study has revealed that it was much less than was estimated.
- The Dunk fish, or Dunkleosteus terrellilived about 360 million years ago during the Devonian period (419 million to 358 million years ago);
- The first fossils were found 150 years ago on the shores of Lake Erie, near Cleveland, Ohio, in the United States;
- The largest species of Dunk ever found is currently on display at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History;
- The fish possessed a super powerful bite, with blade-like teeth that could snap shut with 3600 pounds of force.
Confusion about the length of the fish
The fish size confusion started because the Dunk had an armored bony skull and a cartilage skeleton, unlike fish found today. It turns out that only the skull, about 85 centimeters high, had been preserved.
Thus, to estimate the size of the fish, the researchers are based on the proportion between the size of the skull and the length of the body of a shark and came to the conclusion that they could reach up to 9 meters in length. After that, there wasn’t much research on the species.
This idea that they were giants lasted for about 150, until researcher Russell Engelman went to the Cleveland Museum of Natural History and realized that the Dunk’s body proportions were totally wrong.
Everything in biology is influenced by body size. I tried using some of the old measurements, and biologically they just didn’t make sense.
Russell Engelman, in reply to LiveScience
Reconstructions based on the Dunk’s 30-foot-long size resulted in odd and bizarre proportions that looked nothing like the fish’s drawings.
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Recalculating the length of the Dunk
The researcher decided to go after how the scientists who discovered the Dunk calculated the size of the fish, and realized that they never really studied it.
I scoured the literature and found that most previous authors who talked about this were basically just noting it.
Russell Engelman
To solve the problem, the researcher concentrated on analyzing the proportions of the head and body of different species of fish, and not just sharks, as they had done. The result was that the Dunk most likely did not exceed 4 meters in length.
The study showed that skulls that are very tall and wide, but short in length like the Dunk’s, result in shorter fish. While longer heads are found in longer fish such as sharks.
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