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Dunkleosteus could quickly open and close its jaw, creating suction like modern-day suction feeders, and had a bite force that is considered the highest of any living or fossil fish, and among the highest of any animal. Fossils of Dunkleosteus have been found in the United States, Canada, Poland, Belgium, and Morocco.
Placoderms were among the first jawed fish (their jaws likely evolved from the first pair of gill arches), as well as the first vertebrates to have true teeth. They were also the first fish clade to develop pelvic fins , the second set of paired fins and the homologous precursor to hindlimbs in tetrapods .
The study of prehistoric fish is called paleoichthyology. A few living forms, such as the coelacanth are also referred to as prehistoric fish, or even living fossils, due to their current rarity and similarity to extinct forms. Fish which have become recently extinct are not usually referred to as prehistoric fish.
[6] [16] [17] Museum curator Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer discovered the fish among the catch of a local fisherman. [6] Courtenay-Latimer contacted a Rhodes University ichthyologist, J. L. B. Smith, sending him drawings of the fish, and he confirmed the fish's importance with a famous cable: "Most Important Preserve Skeleton and Gills = Fish ...
The earliest fossils are of teeth and come from the Devonian period. The only living holocephalans are the chimaeras (Chimaeriformes), though during the late Paleozoic ( Carboniferous and Permian ) Holocephali was much more diverse, including an array of forms including those considerably different from modern Chimaeriformes, including shark ...
About 280 million years ago, a large creature built somewhat like a salamander but with frightful fangs prowled the swamps and lakes of what is now Namibia, ambushing prey as a top predator in a ...
Arthrodira (Greek for "jointed neck") is an order of extinct armored, jawed fishes of the class Placodermi that flourished in the Devonian period before their sudden extinction, surviving for about 50 million years and penetrating most marine ecological niches.
One of the coolest, most prehistoric-looking fish lives in Florida’s offshore waters of the Gulf of Mexico. It happens to be one of the best to eat but also one of the most elusive.