The Evolution of Man, vol 2, Ernst Haeckel [online e reader txt] 📗

from the fact that in all the chief and distinctive features of organisation they are further removed from the fishes than the fishes are from the Mammals, and even man. With the fishes we enter upon the vast division of the jaw-mouthed or double-nosed Vertebrates (Gnathostoma or Amphirhina). We have to consider the fishes carefully as the class which, on the evidence of palaeontology, comparative anatomy, and ontogeny, may be regarded with absolute certainty as the stem-class of all the higher Vertebrates or Gnathostomes. Naturally, none of the actual fishes can be considered the direct ancestor of the higher Vertebrates. But it is certain that all the Vertebrates or Gnathostomes, from the fishes to man, descend from a common, extinct, fish-like ancestor. If we had this ancient stem-form before us, we would undoubtedly class it as a true fish. Fortunately the comparative anatomy and classification of the fishes are now so far advanced that we can get a very clear idea of these interesting and instructive features.

In order to understand properly the genealogical tree of our race within the vertebrate stem, it is important to bear in mind the characteristics that separate the whole of the Gnathostomes from the Cyclostomes and Craniota. In these respects the fishes agree entirely with all the other Gnathostomes up to man, and it is on this that we base our claim of relationship to the fishes. The following characteristics of the Gnathostomes are anatomic features of this kind: (1) The internal gill-arch apparatus with the jaw arches; (2) the pair of nostrils; (3) the floating bladder or lungs; and (4) the two pairs of limbs.

The peculiar formation of the frame work of the branchial (gill) arches and the connected maxillary (jaw) apparatus is of importance in the whole group of the Gnathostomes. It is inherited in rudimentary form by all of them, from the earliest fishes to man. It is true that the primitive transformation (which we find even in the Ascidia) of the fore gut into the branchial gut can be traced in all the Vertebrates to the same simple type; in this respect the gill-clefts, which pierce the walls of the branchial gut in all the Vertebrates and in the Ascidia, are very characteristic. But the EXTERNAL, superficial branchial skeleton that supports the gill-crate in the Cyclostoma is replaced in the Gnathostomes by an INTERNAL branchial skeleton. It consists of a number of successive cartilaginous arches, which lie in the wall of the gullet between the gill-clefts, and run round the gullet from both sides. The foremost pair of gill-arches become the maxillary arches, from which we get our upper and lower jaws.

The olfactory organs are at first found in the same form in all the Gnathostomes, as a pair of depressions in the fore part of the skin of the head, above the mouth; hence, they are also called the Amphirhina (“double-nosed”). The Cyclostoma are “one-nosed” (Monorhina); their nose is a single passage in the middle of the frontal surface. But as the olfactory nerve is double in both cases, it is possible that the peculiar form of the nose in the actual Cyclostomes is a secondary acquisition (by adaptation to suctorial habits).

A third essential character of the Gnathostomes, that distinguishes them very conspicuously from the lower vertebrates we have dealt with, is the formation of a blind sac by invagination from the fore part of the gut, which becomes in the fishes the air-filled floating-bladder. This organ acts as a hydrostatic apparatus, increasing or reducing the specific gravity of the fish by compressing or altering the quantity of air in it. The fish can rise or sink in the water by means of it. This is the organ from which the lungs of the higher vertebrates are developed.

(FIGURE 2.250. Fully developed man-eating shark (Carcharias melanopterus), left view. r1 first, r2 second dorsal fin, s tail-fin, a anus-fin, v breast-fins, h belly-fins.)

Finally, the fourth character of the Gnathostomes in their simple embryonic form is the two pairs of extremities or limbs—a pair of fore legs (breast-fins in the fish, Figure 2.250 v) and a pair of hind legs (ventral fins in the fish, Figure 2.250 h). The comparative anatomy of these fins is very interesting, because they contain the rudiments of all the skeletal parts that form the framework of the fore and hind legs in all the higher vertebrates right up to man. There is no trace of these pairs of limbs in the Acrania and Cyclostomes.

Turning, now, to a closer inspection of the fish class, we may first divide it into three groups or sub-classes, the genealogy of which is well known to us. The first and oldest group is the sub-class of the Selachii or primitive fishes; the best-known representatives of which to-day are the orders of the sharks and rays (Figures 2.248 to 2.252). Next to this is the more advanced sub-class of the plated fishes or Ganoids (Figures 2.253 to 2.255). It has been long extinct for the most part, and has very few living representatives, such as the sturgeon and the bony pike; but we can form some idea of the earlier extent of this interesting group from the large numbers of fossils. From these plated fishes the sub-class of the bony fishes or Teleostei was developed, to which the great majority of living fishes belong (especially nearly all our river fishes). Comparative anatomy and ontogeny show clearly that the Ganoids descended from the Selachii, and the Teleostei from the Ganoids. On the other hand, a collateral line, or rather the advancing chief line of the vertebrate stem, was developed from the earlier Ganoids, and this leads us through the group of the Dipneusta to the important division of the Amphibia.

(FIGURE 2.251. Fossil angel-shark (Squatina alifera), from the upper Jurassic at Eichstatt. (From Zittel.) The cartilaginous skull is clearly seen in the broad head, and the gill-arches behind. The wide breast-fin and the narrower belly-fin have a number of radii; between these and the vertebral column are a number of ribs.)

The earliest fossil remains of Vertebrates that we know were found in the Upper Silurian (Chapter 2.18), and belong to two groups—the Selachii and the Ganoids. The most primitive of all known representatives of the earliest fishes are probably the remarkable Pleuracanthida, the genera Pleuracanthus, Xenacanthus, Orthocanthus, etc. (Figure 2.248). These ancient cartilaginous fishes agree in most points of structure with the real sharks (Figures 2.249 and 2.250); but in other respects they seem to be so much simpler in organisation that many palaeontologists separate them altogether, and regard them as Proselachii; they are probably closely related to the extinct ancestors of the Gnathostomes. We find well-preserved remains of them in the Permian period. Well-preserved impressions of other sharks are found in the Jurassic schist, such as of the angel-fish (Squatina, Figure 2.251). Among the extinct earlier sharks of the Tertiary period there were some twice as large as the biggest living fishes; Carcharodon was more than 100 feet long. The sole surviving species of this genus (C. Rondeleti) is eleven yards long, and has teeth two inches long; but among the fossil species we find teeth six inches long (Figure 2.252).

From the primitive fishes or Selachii, the earliest Gnathostomes, was developed the legion of the Ganoids. There are very few genera now of this interesting and varied group—the ancient sturgeons (Accipenser), the eggs of which are eaten as caviare, and the stratified pikes (Polypterus, Figure 2.255) in African rivers, and bony pikes (Lepidosteus) in the rivers of North America. On the other hand, we have a great variety of specimens of this group in the fossil state, from the Upper Silurian onward. Some of these fossil Ganoids approach closely to the Selachii; others are nearer to the Dipneusts; others again represent a transition to the Teleostei. For our genealogical purposes the most interesting are the intermediate forms between the Selachii and the Dipneusts. Huxley, to whom we owe particularly important works on the fossil Ganoids, classed them in the order of the Crossopterygii. Many genera and species of this order are found in the Devonian and Carboniferous strata (Figure 2.253); a single, greatly modified survivor of the group is still found in the large rivers of Africa (Polypterus, Figure 2.255, and the closely related Calamichthys). In many impressions of the Crossopterygii the floating bladder seems to be ossified, and therefore well preserved—for instance, in the Undina (Figure 2.254, immediately behind the head).

Part of these Crossopterygii approach very closely in their chief anatomic features to the Dipneusts, and thus represent phylogenetically the transition from the Devonian Ganoids to the earliest air-breathing vertebrates. This important advance was made in the Devonian period. The numerous fossils that we have from the first two geological sections, the Laurentian and Cambrian periods, belong exclusively to aquatic plants and animals. From this paleontological fact, in conjunction with important geological and biological indications, we may infer with some confidence that there were no terrestrial animals at that time. During the whole of the vast archeozoic period—many millions of years—the living population of our planet consisted almost exclusively of aquatic organisms; this is a very remarkable fact, when we remember that this period embraces the larger half of the whole history of life. The lower animal-stems are wholly (or with very few exceptions) aquatic. But the higher stems also remained in the water during the primordial epoch. It was only towards its close that some of them came to live on land. We find isolated fossil remains of terrestrial animals first in the Upper Silurian, and in larger numbers in the Devonian strata, which were deposited at the beginning of the second chief section of geology (the paleozoic age). The number increases considerably in the Carboniferous and Permian deposits. We find many species both of the articulate and the vertebrate stem that lived on land and breathed the atmosphere; their aquatic ancestors of the Silurian period only breathed water. This important change in respiration is the chief modification that the animal organism underwent in passing from the water to the solid land. The first consequence was the formation of lungs for breathing air; up to that time the gills alone had served for respiration. But there was at the same time a great change in the circulation and its organs; these are always very closely correlated to the respiratory organs. Moreover, the limbs and other organs were also more or less modified, either in consequence of remote correlation to the preceding or owing to new adaptations.

(FIGURE 2.252. Tooth of a gigantic shark (Carcharodon megalodon), from the Pliocene at Malta. Half natural size. (From Zittel.))

In the vertebrate stem it was unquestionably a branch of the fishes—in fact, of the Ganoids—that made the first fortunate experiment during the Devonian period of adapting themselves to terrestrial life and breathing the atmosphere. This led to a modification of the heart and the nose. The true fishes have merely a pair of blind olfactory pits on the surface of the head; but a connection of these with the cavity of the mouth was now formed. A canal made its appearance on each side, and led directly from the nasal depression into the mouth-cavity, thus conveying atmospheric air to the lungs even when the mouth was closed. Further, in all true fishes the heart has only two sections—an atrium that receives the venous blood from the veins, and a ventricle that propels it through a conical artery to the gills; the atrium was now divided into two halves, or right and left auricles, by an incomplete partition. The right auricle alone now received the venous blood from the body, while the left auricle received the venous blood that flowed from the lungs and gills to the heart. Thus the double circulation of the higher vertebrates was evolved from the simple circulation of the true fishes, and, in accordance with the laws of correlation, this