Re: ... Guiyu will revitalize the "long stagnant research tracing the very basal root of vertebrates"

["David Marjanovic" <david.marjanovic@gmx.at>]

> The recent discovery in China of an unusually intact and ancient fossil
> fish, the distant ancestor of about 99.7 percent of today's living
> vertebrates including human beings

Nope. *Guiyu* is a sarcopterygian. That alone reduces the percentage by more 
than half.

Furthermore, it's not an ancestor of anything known. It comes out as...

Sarcopterygii
 |--*Ligulalepis* (strangely enough)
 `--+--*Meemannia*
    `--+--+--*Guiyu*
       |  `--+--*Psarolepis*
       |     `--*Achoania*
       `--crown-group of Sarcopterygii
            |--+--*Onychodus*
            |  `--*Miguashaia* (Actinistia)
            `--+--*Styloichthys* (also recently found in Actinistia)
               `--+--*Kenichthys* (Tetrapodomorpha)
                  `--Dipnomorpha
                       |--*Powichthys*
                       `--+--*Youngolepis*
                          `--*Diabolepis*

At least five ghost lineages of Osteichthyes now extend at least into the 
second-to-last stage of the Silurian, the middle of which *Guiyu* is from.