Furcacaudiformes is an extinct order of jawless fish in the class

Thelodonti Thelodonti (from Greek: "feeble teeth")Maisey, John G., Craig Chesek, and David Miller. Discovering fossil fishes. New York: Holt, 1996. is a class of extinct jawless fishes with distinctive scales instead of large plates of armor. There is much ...

. Because the paucity of intact fossils, especially since some families are known entirely from scale fossils, taxonomy of thelodonts is based primarily on scale

morphology Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to: Disciplines * Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts * Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies ...

. A 2009 assessment of thelodont

taxonomy Taxonomy is the practice and science of categorization or classification. A taxonomy (or taxonomical classification) is a scheme of classification, especially a hierarchical classification, in which things are organized into groups or types. ...

by Wilson and Märss merges the orders Loganelliiformes, Katoporiida and Shieliiformes into Thelodontiformes, places

families Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Ideal ...

Lanarkiidae and Nikoliviidae into Furcacaudiformes (because of scale morphology) and establishes

Archipelepidiformes Archipelepidiformes is an order of extinct jawless fishes in the class Thelodonti. Archipelepidiforms are regarded as the basalmost thelodonts primarily because the histology and morphology of archipelepidiforms have many similarities with the h ...

as the basal-most order.

References

External links

* Thelodonti Devonian jawless fish Prehistoric jawless fish orders {{Devonian-jawless-fish-stub