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Anaspids were small marine agnathans that lacked heavy bony shield and paired fins, but have a striking highly hypocercal tail. They first appeared in the Early Silurian, and flourished until the Late Devonian extinction, [17] where most species, save for lampreys, became extinct due to the environmental upheaval during that time.
The latter has lost the paired fins, possibly as a consequence of an adaptation to burrowing habits. [ 2 ] The class Osteostraci (meaning "bony shells") is an extinct taxon of bony-armored jawless fish , termed " ostracoderms ", that lived in what is now North America, Europe and Russia from the Middle Silurian to Late Devonian .
Since then, opinions on the relations among jawless vertebrates have varied. Most workers have come to regard Agnatha as paraphyletic, having given rise to the jawed fishes. Because of shared features such as paired fins, the origins of the jawed vertebrates may lie close to Cephalaspidomorphi.
Agnatha (/ ˈ æ ɡ n ə θ ə, æ ɡ ˈ n eɪ θ ə /; [3] from Ancient Greek ἀ-(a-) 'without' and γνάθος (gnáthos) 'jaws') is a paraphyletic infraphylum [4] of non-gnathostome vertebrates, or jawless fish, in the phylum Chordata, subphylum Vertebrata, consisting of both living (cyclostomes) and extinct (conodonts, anaspids, and ostracoderms, among others).
Chondrichthyes (cartilage-fish) or cartilaginous fishes are jawed fish with paired fins, paired nares, scales, a heart with its chambers in series, and skeletons made of cartilage rather than bone. The class is divided into two subclasses: Elasmobranchii ( sharks , rays and skates ) and Holocephali ( chimaeras , sometimes called ghost sharks ...
Reptiles are found throughout Michigan, although the only venomous species, the eastern massasauga rattlesnake, is seen only in the Lower Peninsula. [2] Reptiles are cold-blooded , and so usually pass the cold winters of Michigan in frost-free areas, such as burrows (for snakes and land-dwelling turtles) or the bottoms of lakes and streams (for ...
Acanthodii or acanthodians is an extinct class of gnathostomes (jawed fishes).They are currently considered to represent a paraphyletic grade of various fish lineages basal to extant Chondrichthyes, which includes living sharks, rays, and chimaeras.
The pair of pectoral fins were modified into a pair of caliper-like, or arthropod-like limbs. In primitive forms, such as Yunnanolepis, the limbs were thick and short, while in advanced forms, such as Bothriolepis, the limbs were long and had elbow-like joints. The function of the limbs is still not perfectly understood, but most hypothesize ...