From the Edinburgh Herald:
Ancient Scottish creature was first to 'have sex'...385 million years ago
Birds do it, bees do it ... and so did an early ancestor of humans that lived in Scotland 385 million years ago.I'm no expert but they look more Irish:
Scientists have traced the history of vertebrate sexual intercourse to an ancient armoured fish named Microbrachius dicki.
Microbrachius means "little arms" and refers to the genital limbs that locked male and female fish together when mating. And dicki, well...
The three inch long placoderm - a primitive armoured fish - frolicked in Scottish lakes millions of years before fins evolved into legs.
A study of Microbachius fossils revealed the first evidence of their primitive sexual organs.
To transfer sperm, males had grooved L-shaped claspers which were held in place by small paired bones on the female.
Lead scientist Professor John Long, from Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia, said: "Microbrachius means little arms but scientists have been baffled for centuries by what these bony paired arms were actually there for....MORE
