Professor John Long

Many parts of our human anatomy originated back in the Early Palaeozoic (540-350 million years ago). This was when jaws, teeth, paired limbs, ossified brain-cases, intromittent genital organs, chambered hearts and paired lungs all appeared in early fishes. For the past 30 years I have been collecting from the Gogo sites in northern Western Australia, whose perfectly preserved 3-D fish fossils have yielded many significant discoveries, including mineralised soft tissues and the origins of complex sexual reproduction in vertebrates.

Current research projects include investigating the evolution of the vertebrate brain across the the fish to tetrapod transition (DP 200103398); describing the highly derived fish Elpistostege (with Prof R. Cloutier, University of Quebec at Rimouski); describing new Late Devonian Gogo fishes and reconstructing their soft tissue anatomy (with Prof. K. Trinajstic, Curtin Univ.),and investigating early tetrapod trackways from Ireland and Australia (with Prof. Per Ahlberg, Uppsala University) A recent focus on the Mansfield area, Victoria, is yeilding some significant new Devonian and Carboniferous fish fossils currently under study. I completed my 4th field season in Antarctica over 2018/19 with the USAP program working with Prof Neil Shubin from the University of Chicago and we will be researching the fish fossils we collected.

I am the author or editor of some 30 adult and children's books, including technical books, general non-fiction and fiction. My most recent books Hung Like an Argentine Duck (Harper Collins 2011, Dawn of the Deed, U.Chicago Press, PB 2014) gives an account of our Gogo discoveries of the world's oldest embryos and early sexual dimorphism in vertebrates, and explores the relevance of fossils to understanding sex in a broad evolutionary context. Life Frozen in Time- Prehistoric Life in Antarctica (Stilwell & Long, 2011) gives a complete overview of the evolution of life in Antarctica (CSIRO Publishing).