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Gnathostome diversity comprises roughly 60,000 species, which accounts for 99% of all living vertebrates, including humans. Most gnathostomes have retained ancestral traits like true teeth , a stomach , [ 2 ] and paired appendages (pectoral and pelvic fins, arms, legs, wings, etc.). [ 3 ]
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 earliest deposited generations of accessory teeth in each row are located at the tip of the whorl spiral labially of the primary teeth. Unlike the continuously shedding teeth of modern sharks, [7] the tooth whorls of Qianodus retained their teeth and grew in size throughout the life of the animal. The recorded gradual enlargement of the ...
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 ...
Like the extinct and related acanthothoracids, and the living and unrelated holocephalians, most of the ptyctodontids are thought to have lived near the sea bottom and preyed on shellfish. On account of their lack of armour, some paleontologists have suggested that the Ptyctodontida were not placoderms, but holocephalians or the ancestors of ...
Osteichthyes (/ ˌ ɒ s t iː ˈ ɪ k θ iː z / ost-ee-IK-theez; from Ancient Greek ὀστέον (ostéon) 'bone' and ἰχθύς (ikhthús) 'fish'), [2] also known as osteichthyans or commonly referred to as the bony fish, is a diverse superclass of vertebrate animals that have endoskeletons primarily composed of bone tissue.
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).
According to these fossils, conodonts had large eyes, fins with fin rays, chevron-shaped muscles and axial line, which were interpreted as notochord or the dorsal nerve cord. [ 31 ] [ 35 ] While Clydagnathus and Panderodus had lengths only reaching 4–5 cm (1.6–2.0 in), Promissum is estimated to reach 40 cm (16 in) in length, if it had the ...