#materpiscis

[ppaleoartistgallery]

#Paleostream 9/05/2026

yesterday on #Paleostream flocking we did a tribute to Sir David Attenborough!

we sketched Attenborosaurus conybeari, Microleo attenboroughi, Caipirasuchus attenboroughi, and Materpiscis attenboroughi

[alex-fictus]

M is for...?

All of the M names in my Paleo Party! Are there any I'm missing? I had so many in this category, I had to make the Cenozoic it's own post! Come back tomorrow to see the mega-group of the Miocene and onwards!

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[veloci-raptor]

Special David Attenborough 100th anniversary Flocking Together (#118)

Attenborosaurus/Microleo

Caipirasuchus/Materpiscis

[ppaleoartistgallery]

Attenborough's 100th Birthday + Mother's Day

to celebrate Sir David Attenborough's 100th birthday and mother's day, i decided to draw Materpiscis attenboroughi aka Attenborough's mother fish

this fish has a very special connection to my heart not only for its association with Attenborough but also because it's from Gogo which i also love dearly as a person living in WA interested in Palaeontology, and i will continue to thank Attenborough for bringing attention to it

[alex-fictus]

PLACODERMS!

Not to be confused with Pachyderms, Placoderms are armored fishes who ruled the oceans of the Devonian. There's two main types, the arthrodires and the antiarchs, and plenty others beyond that.

Arthrodires tend to be large, open water predators, while antiarchs are smaller, bottom dwellers, but this isn't a hard set rule.

Dunkleosteus - Titanichthys Materpiscis attenboroughi - Bothriolepis

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Planned or in the works: Coccosteus, Silurolepis, Brindabellaspis

[alex-fictus]

My Paleozoic is Violet!

Haikouichthys - Eryops - Myllokunmingia

Rhizodus - Erbenochile - Materpiscis attenbourghi

Pterygotus - Marella - Schinderhannes bartelsi

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[palaeopedia]

The mother fish, Materpiscis (2008)

Phylum : Chordata Class : Placodermi Order : Ptyctodontida Family : Ptyctodontidae Genus : Materpiscis Species : M. attenboroughi

Late Devonian (380 Ma)

28 cm long (size)

Australia (map)

The prehistoric fish Materpiscis is known by only one fossil, but what a spectacular fossil it is: a full-grown female with the remains of an embryo nestled in its belly. What this means, incredibly, is that Materpiscis was viviparous, giving birth to live young rather than laying eggs, like the vast majority of other fish. In fact, Materpiscis is the earliest viviparous vertebrate yet identified. (This fish is also unique for another reason: its name, which means "mother fish," is derived from Latin rather than Greek roots.)

Aside from its reproductive habits, Materpiscis is notable for being an example of a placoderm, the armored fishes that dominated the Devonian period. Like others of its breed, the front part of Materpiscis was covered by a tough coating of armored skin, and it probably ground up sea-floor-dwelling crustaceans with its toothless (but beaked) mouth.

[aneyeforscience-blog]

This is an intriguing illustration by a PhD student named Brian Choo. I noticed it first in John Long's book The Rise of Fishes, Second Edition, which was just released this month by The Johns Hopkins Press. The book is richly illustrated (hooray!) with varying degrees of success. I believe that many of the illustrations are done by the author himself. These vary considerably in consistency and attention to detail (I'm talking stray marks and fuzzy edges), but I'm in no mood to fault him because he clearly put a lot of work into it and produced a lively book on every page. The scientist who pays such attention to the visual aspect of his work is a friend of mine.

In addition to Long's work, there are several signed pieces by Brian Choo, who appears to be a Ph.D. student at the Australian National University's Research School of Earth Sciences. His work varies in consistency as well, but on the whole his pieces look more finished than Long's. I hope he pursues art alongside his science career because his images have promise. I would be curious to know whether he drew this fish digitally on top of an altered photograph of a sandy bottom with a rocky ledge behind. That is what it looks like to me, which means that he probably could have pushed the illustration a little more to disguise this fact better. But the fish is well rendered. Quite lovely, I think. I hope we see more of his work in the future!

image source: Brian Choo in "The oldest mother" by Long et. al, ANU - Research School of Earth Sciences - ANU College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences