Glaphurochiton is a genus of fossil chitons known from the

Mazon Creek The Mazon Creek fossil beds are a conservation ' found near Morris, in Grundy County, Illinois. The fossils are preserved in ironstone concretions, formed approximately in the mid- Pennsylvanian epoch of the Carboniferous period. These concreti ...

biota. Remarkably, it contains an intact

radula The radula (, ; plural radulae or radulas) is an anatomical structure used by molluscs for feeding, sometimes compared to a tongue. It is a minutely toothed, chitinous ribbon, which is typically used for scraping or cutting food before the food ...

, which with 17 teeth per row and over 100 rows is almost identical to the radula of modern chitons (even though the crown group emerged in the

Mesozoic The Mesozoic Era ( ), also called the Age of Reptiles, the Age of Conifers, and colloquially as the Age of the Dinosaurs is the second-to-last era of Earth's geological history, lasting from about , comprising the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceo ...

). The radula extends from the first to third shell plates.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q5566663 Prehistoric chiton genera