Top Qs
Timeline
Chat
Perspective

Arandaspis

Extinct genus of jawless fishes From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Arandaspis
Remove ads

Arandaspis is an extinct genus of jawless fish that lived in the Ordovician period, about 480 to 470 million years ago. Its remains were found in the Stairway Sandstone near Alice Springs, Australia in 1959, but it was not determined that they were the oldest known vertebrates until the late 1960s. Arandaspis is named after a local Indigenous Australian people, the Aranda (now currently called Arrernte).

Quick Facts Scientific classification, Type species ...
Remove ads

Description

Thumb
Life restoration, with trunk morphology based on speculation in Ritchie and Gilbert-Tomlinson (1977) and tail based on Sacabambaspis

Arandaspis is estimated to reach around 12–14 cm (5–6 in) long, with a body covered in rows of knobbly armoured scutes. The front of the body and the head were protected by hard plates with openings for the eyes, nostrils and gills. It probably was a filter-feeder. The morphology of its trunk and tail is unknown.[2] According to comparisons with other early ostracoderms, it would have lacked paired fins and the caudal fin would be of a simple shape,[2] although another arandaspid Sacabambaspis had a tail consisting of dorsal and ventral webs and an elongated notochordal lobe.[3]

Remove ads

See also

References

Loading related searches...

Wikiwand - on

Seamless Wikipedia browsing. On steroids.

Remove ads