''Mizia'' is a genus of primitive

antiarch Antiarchi ("opposite anus") is an order of heavily armored placoderms. The antiarchs form the second-most successful group of placoderms after the arthrodires in terms of numbers of species and range of environments. The order's name was coi ...

placoderm found in

Emsian The Emsian is one of three faunal stages in the Early Devonian Epoch. It lasted from 407.6 ± 2.6 million years ago to 393.3 ± 1.2 million years ago. It was preceded by the Pragian Stage and followed by the Eifelian Stage. It is named after the ...

-aged marine strata of Early Devonian China.

Species

''Mizia longhuaensis''

The only known specimen is of a mostly complete thoracic armor from the Xujiachong Formation in Qujing,

Yunnan Yunnan , () is a landlocked province in the southwest of the People's Republic of China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 48.3 million (as of 2018). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the C ...

. The armor is very similar to that of '' Yunnanolepis'', but is distinguished by a unique floral pattern of raised ridges and grooves radiating from a point at the center of the dorsal shield of the thoracic armor. A similar pattern is seen on the thoracic armor of the

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 i ...

ese '' Vukhuclepis''. ''M. longhuaensis''' armor is further ornamented with small tubercles.

''Mizia parvus''

Originally described as '' Yunnanolepis parvus''. Min Zhu reexamined specimens of ''Y. parvus'', and found the armor, in addition to being rather different from the armor seen in ''Yunnanolepis'', to be more anatomically similar to the holotype of ''M. longhuaensis'', and placed it into ''Mizia''.

References

Placoderm genera Placoderms of Asia Antiarchi Prehistoric animals of China {{placoderm-stub