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Synonyms. Placodermata. Placoderms (from Greek πλάξ (plax, plakos) ' plate ' and δέρμα (derma) 'skin') [1] are vertebrate animals of the class Placodermi, an extinct group of prehistoric fish known from Paleozoic fossils during the Silurian and the Devonian periods. While their endoskeletons are mainly cartilaginous, their head and ...
Evolution of fish. The Devonian period (419–359 Mya), also known as the Age of Fishes, saw the development of early sharks, armoured placoderms and various lobe-finned fish, including the tetrapod transitional species. The evolution of fish began about 530 million years ago during the Cambrian explosion. It was during this time that the early ...
Dunkleosteus. Dunkleosteus is an extinct genus of large arthrodire ("jointed-neck") fish that existed during the Late Devonian period, about 382–358 million years ago. It was a pelagic fish inhabiting open waters, and one of the first apex predators of any ecosystem. [1]
The oldest fossils appeared during the late Silurian, and became extinct at the end of the Devonian. Recent studies suggest that the placoderms are possibly a paraphyletic group of basal jawed fishes, and the closest relatives of all living jawed vertebrates. Some placoderms were small, flattened bottom-dwellers, such as antiarchs. However many ...
Placoderms were extinct by the end of the Devonian. [5] Placodermi is a paraphyletic group of the clade Gnathostomata , which includes all jawed vertebrates. [ 5 ] It is unclear exactly when gnathostomes emerged, but the scant early fossil record indicates that it was sometime in the Early Palaeozoic era. [ 6 ]
Chondrichthyes (/ kɒnˈdrɪkθiiːz /; from Ancient Greek χόνδρος (khóndros) 'cartilage' and ἰχθύς (ikhthús) 'fish') is a class of jawed fish that contains the cartilaginous fish or chondrichthyans, which all have skeletons primarily composed of cartilage. They can be contrasted with the Osteichthyes or bony fish, which have ...
Paleontologists believe that the males of the ancestral placoderm had pelvic claspers, but the claspers were lost in the evolutionary development of each of the placoderm orders, save for the ptyctodontids (there are too few whole specimens of the primitive Stensioella heintzi to tell if the males of that species had claspers or not).
Coelacanths have eight fins – two dorsal fins, two pectoral fins, two pelvic fins, one anal fin and one caudal fin. The tail is very nearly equally proportioned and is split by a terminal tuft of fin rays that make up its caudal lobe. The eyes of the coelacanth are very large, while the mouth is very small.