The newfound fish was apparently capable of gliding just like modern flying fish.
The fish had a greatly enlarged pair of pectoral fins that could have served as wings, the 'Live Science' Reported.
It also had a deeply forked tail fin whose lower half was much stronger than its upper half, and swimming with such a fin could potentially generate the power needed to launch the fish out of water.
However, modern flying fish do not appear to descend from this fossil. Instead, the ability to glide on water seems to have evolved independently in this ancient lineage.
These new findings hint that marine life may have recovered more quickly than before thought after the greatest mass extinction in Earth's history, the report said.
Modern flying fish are capable of gliding through the air as much as 400 meters in 30 seconds, with a maximum flight speed of up to about 72 kph, probably flying mainly to escape from predators such as dolphins, squid and other fish.
These fish live in tropical and subtropical waters, and no known fossil specimens are older than 65 million years.
Now researchers have found evidence that flight evolved another time in the history of fish. This is the earliest example of gliding on water seen in vertebrates
