Xinhua News Agency Scientists have confirmed that vertebrates and head structures have been found in Haikou fish fossils 530 million years ago, thus confirming that Haikou fish is indeed the oldest known vertebrate in the world. This indicates that the research on the origin of vertebrates has made substantial progress. On June 30th, 2003, the British magazine Nature published this important achievement, which was jointly completed by Professor Shu Degan from Northwest University and China Geo University, as well as British, French and Japanese scholars. In this paper entitled "Vertebrate and Head Structure of Early Cambrian Vertebrate Haikou Fish", the characteristics of vertebrate and head structure of Haikou fish are revealed in detail, which provides the latest evidence for confirming that Haikou fish is indeed the oldest known vertebrate in the world. This is the seventh time that Nature has published a series of research results of Shu Degan and others on the "CAMBRIAN life explosion".

Shu Degan said that the leap from "headless" invertebrates to vertebrates (headless) involves a series of embryonic development and morphological innovations, including the appearance of primitive spine and the appearance of head senses such as vision, smell and hearing. Obviously, the unique structural features of the oldest known vertebrate may only represent the key link in the long-awaited evolution from headless to headless. Shu Degan further pointed out that the cladistic pedigree analysis of live fish and fossil fish also confirmed that Haikou fish is indeed the most primitive vertebrate known. This also confirms that southern China is probably the birthplace of the whole "vertebrate evolutionary tree".