Palaeospondylus
Name:
Palaeospondylus
(Ancient vertebrae).
Phonetic: Pay-le-oh-spon-dy-lus.
Classification: Chordata, Vertebrata.
Species: P. gunni.
Diet: Filter feeder?
Size: About 6 centimetres long.
Known locations: Scotland, Caithness.
Time period: Mid Devonian.
Fossil representation: Specimen preserved flat.
Usually
considered to be a primitive fish with an elongate eel-like body,
there is no universal agreement into what Palaeospondylus
actually
was. In the past Palaeospondylus has been
proposed to be a larval
lungfish, unarmoured placoderm,
an arthrodire, a chimaera and
even a larval tetrapod.
A
primitive fish that might be similar to Palaeospondylus
in form, and
also known from Scotland, is Jamoytius.
Further reading
- Palaeospondylus as a primitive hagfish. - Zoological Letters. 2 (1):
20. - T. Hirasawa, Y. Oisi & S. Kuratani - 2016.
- Questioning hagfish affinities of the enigmatic Devonian vertebrate
Palaeospondylus. - Royal Society Open Science. 4 (7): 170214. - Zerina
Johanson, Moya Smith, Sophie Sanchez, Tim Senden, Kate Trinajstic
& Cathrin Pfaff - 2017.
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