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Acanthothoraci
Acanthothoraci (''spine chests'') is an extinct group of chimaera-like placoderms who were closely related to the rhenanid placoderms. Superficially, the acanthoracids resembled scaly chimaeras, or (relatively) heavily armored ptyctodonts. They were distinguished from chimaeras by the presence of large scales and plates, a pair of large spines that emanate from their chests (thus, the order's name), tooth-like beak plates, and the typical bone-enhanced placoderm eyeball. They were distinguished from other placoderms due to differences in the anatomy of their skulls, and due to patterns on the skull plates and thoracic plates that are unique to this order. Fossil record Fossils of the Acanthothoracids are found in various deposits from the Lower Devonian throughout the world. Fossils of the Palaeacanthaspids are found in Eurasia and Canada, while the Weejasperaspids have only been found in the Taemas Wee Jasper reef, in Southeastern Australia. Ecology From what can be inferr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Placodermi
Placodermi (from Greek πλάξ 'plate' and δέρμα 'skin', literally 'Plate (animal anatomy), plate-skinned') is a Class (biology), class of armoured prehistoric fish, known from fossils, which lived from the Silurian to the end of the Devonian period. Their head and thorax were covered by articulated armoured plates and the rest of the body was scale (zoology), scaled or naked, depending on the species. Placoderms were among the first jawed fish; their Fish jaw, jaws likely evolved from the first of their gill arches. Placoderms are thought to be paraphyly, paraphyletic, consisting of several distinct Outgroup (cladistics), outgroups or sister taxon, sister taxa to all living jawed vertebrates, which originated among their ranks. In contrast, one 2016 analysis concluded that placodermi are likely monophyletic, though these analyses have been further dismissed with more transitional taxa between placoderms and modern gnathosthomes, solidifying their paraphyletic status. Plac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Weejasperaspididae
Weejasperaspididae ("Shields of Wee Jasper") is a family of three extinct acanthothoracid placoderms indigenous to the Early Devonian of Victoria and New South Wales, Australia. Description The Weejasperaspids are known from median dorsal plates with distinctive, blade-like crests in the median-posterior portion, and ossified eye capsules. Evolutionary relationships The main reasons why the weejasperaspids are not considered to be closely related to other non-acanthothoracid placoderms, as opposed to the palaeacanthaspids, are that their skull anatomies and plate histologies are generalized, and do not bear any similarities to any specific non-acanthothoracid group, and that the patterns of ornamentation on their dermal plates are unique to this family. The placoderm ''Brindabellaspis stensioi'' was once regarded as a weejasperaspid because of the similarities between its dermal plates to the other weejasperaspids. Even before it was split off into its own order, it stood o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pseudopetalichthyida
Pseudopetalichthyida is an extinct order of lightly armored placoderms known only from rare fossils in Lower Devonian strata in Hunsrück, Germany. Like ''Stensioella heintzi'', and the Rhenanida, the Pseudopetalichthids had armor made up of a mosaic of tubercles. Like ''Stensioella heintzi'', the Pseudopetalichthids' placement within Placodermi is suspect. However, due to a gross lack of whole, uncrushed, articulated specimens, there are no other groups that the Pseudopetalichthids could be, for a lack of a better word, pigeonholed into. On the other hand, according to anatomical studies done on the crushed specimens that have been found, those experts who do regard the Pseudopetalichthyida as placoderms consider them to be a group more advanced than the Ptyctodonts. And as such, pro-placoderm experts consider Pseudopetalichthyida to be the sister group of the Arthrodires + Phyllolepida + Antiarchi trichotomy and the Acanthothoraci + Rhenanida dichotomy. The best known s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chimaera
Chimaeras are cartilaginous fish in the order Chimaeriformes , known informally as ghost sharks, rat fish, spookfish, or rabbit fish; the last three names are not to be confused with rattails, Opisthoproctidae, or Siganidae, respectively. At one time a "diverse and abundant" group (based on the fossil record), their closest living relatives are sharks and rays, though their last common ancestor with them lived nearly 400 million years ago. Today, they are largely confined to deep water. Description and habits Chimaeras live in temperate ocean floors down to deep, with few occurring at depths shallower than . Exceptions include the members of the genus ''Callorhinchus'', the rabbit fish and the spotted ratfish, which locally or periodically can be found at shallower depths. Consequently, these are also among the few species from the chimaera order kept in public aquaria. They live in all the oceans except for the Arctic and Antarctic oceans. They have elongated, soft ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rhenanid
Rhenanida ("Rhine (fish)") is an order of scaly placoderms. Unlike most other placoderms, the rhenanids' armor was made up of a mosaic of unfused scales and tubercles. The patterns and components of this "mosaic" correspond to the plates of armor in other, more advanced placoderms, suggesting that the ancestral placoderm had armor made of unfused components, as well. All rhenanids were flattened, ray-like, bottom-dwelling predators that lived in marine environments. Evolution The rhenanids were once presumed to be the most primitive, or at least the closest to the ancestral placoderm, as their armor was made up of a mosaic of tubercles, as opposed to the solidified plates of "advanced" placoderms, such as antiarchs and arthrodires. Through comparing the skull anatomies of ''Jagorina pandora'' with those of antiarchs, the rhenanids are considered to be the sister group of the antiarchs (together with their respective Acanthothoracid relatives). Presence in the fossil record ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chimaera
Chimaeras are cartilaginous fish in the order Chimaeriformes , known informally as ghost sharks, rat fish, spookfish, or rabbit fish; the last three names are not to be confused with rattails, Opisthoproctidae, or Siganidae, respectively. At one time a "diverse and abundant" group (based on the fossil record), their closest living relatives are sharks and rays, though their last common ancestor with them lived nearly 400 million years ago. Today, they are largely confined to deep water. Description and habits Chimaeras live in temperate ocean floors down to deep, with few occurring at depths shallower than . Exceptions include the members of the genus ''Callorhinchus'', the rabbit fish and the spotted ratfish, which locally or periodically can be found at shallower depths. Consequently, these are also among the few species from the chimaera order kept in public aquaria. They live in all the oceans except for the Arctic and Antarctic oceans. They have elongated, soft ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wee Jasper
Wee Jasper is a hamlet in the Goodradigbee River, Goodradigbee valley at the western foot of the Brindabella Ranges, near Burrinjuck Dam in New South Wales, Australia in Yass Valley Council, Yass Valley Shire. It is located about 90 km north-west of Canberra and 60 km south-west of Yass, New South Wales, Yass. At the , Wee Jasper and the surrounding area had a population of 127. History and description The place now known as Wee Jasper and the surrounding area of the Goodradigbee River valley lie on the traditional lands of the Ngunnawal people. The area lay outside the Nineteen Counties, in which the colonial government allowed colonial settlement; the Buccleuch County, County of Buccleuch and the neighbouring Cowley County, New South Wales, County of Cowley were not proclaimed, until 31 December 1848. The origin of the name Wee Jasper is unknown. It has been in use since at latest 1848, when it appeared as a single-word name 'Weejasper'. Although both 'Weejasper' a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Devonian
The Devonian ( ) is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic era, spanning 60.3 million years from the end of the Silurian, million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Carboniferous, Mya. It is named after Devon, England, where rocks from this period were first studied. The first significant adaptive radiation of life on dry land occurred during the Devonian. Free-sporing vascular plants began to spread across dry land, forming extensive forests which covered the continents. By the middle of the Devonian, several groups of plants had evolved leaves and true roots, and by the end of the period the first seed-bearing plants appeared. The arthropod groups of myriapods, arachnids and hexapods also became well-established early in this period, after starting their expansion to land at least from the Ordovician period. Fish reached substantial diversity during this time, leading the Devonian to often be dubbed the Age of Fishes. The placoderms began dominating ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lochkovian
The Lochkovian is one of three faunal stages in the Early Devonian Epoch. It lasted from 419.2 ± 3.2 million years ago to 410.8 ± 2.8 million years ago. It marked the beginning of the Devonian Period, and was followed by the Pragian Stage. It is named after the village of Lochkov in the Czech Republic, now part of the city of Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate .... The GSSP is located within the Lochkow Formation at the Klonk Section in Prague. In North America the Lochkovian Stage is represented by Gedinnian or Helderbergian time. References Early Devonian {{geochronology-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vietnam
Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making it the world's sixteenth-most populous country. Vietnam borders China to the north, and Laos and Cambodia to the west. It shares maritime borders with Thailand through the Gulf of Thailand, and the Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaysia through the South China Sea. Its capital is Hanoi and its largest city is Ho Chi Minh City (commonly known as Saigon). Vietnam was inhabited by the Paleolithic age, with states established in the first millennium BC on the Red River Delta in modern-day northern Vietnam. The Han dynasty annexed Northern and Central Vietnam under Chinese rule from 111 BC, until the first dynasty emerged in 939. Successive monarchical dynasties absorbed Chinese influences through Confucianism and Buddhism, and expanded ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stensioella
''Stensioella heintzi'' is an enigmatic placoderm of arcane affinity. It is only known from the Lower Devonian Hunsrück slate of Germany. Anatomy ''Stensioella heintzi'' has an elongated body, a whip-like tail, and long, wing-like pectoral fins. In life, the animal would have looked vaguely like an elongated ratfish. Like the sympatric ''Gemuendina'', ''S. heintzi'' had armor made up of a complex mosaic of small, scale-like tubercles. Taxonomy ''Stensioella'' is tentatively placed within Placodermi as being among the most basal of all placoderms, as from what can be discerned from the only whole specimen found, the shoulder joints of its armor appear to be very similar to other placoderms. Despite this detail, coupled with superficial similarities in skull plates, and gross, superficial similarities between its tubercles, and the tubercles of the rhenanids, some paleontologists believe that there are very few concrete reasons for ''S. heintzis placement in Placodermi. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Braincase
In human anatomy, the neurocranium, also known as the braincase, brainpan, or brain-pan is the upper and back part of the skull, which forms a protective case around the brain. In the human skull, the neurocranium includes the calvaria or skullcap. The remainder of the skull is the facial skeleton. In comparative anatomy, neurocranium is sometimes used synonymously with endocranium or chondrocranium. Structure The neurocranium is divided into two portions: * the membranous part, consisting of flat bones, which surround the brain; and * the cartilaginous part, or chondrocranium, which forms bones of the base of the skull. In humans, the neurocranium is usually considered to include the following eight bones: * 1 ethmoid bone * 1 frontal bone * 1 occipital bone * 2 parietal bones * 1 sphenoid bone * 2 temporal bones The ossicles (three on each side) are usually not included as bones of the neurocranium. There may variably also be extra sutural bones present. Below the ne ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
