Agnatha

Agnatha (; from Ancient Greek (a-) 'without' and (gnáthos) 'jaws') or jawless fish is a paraphyleticinfraphylum of animals in the subphylumVertebrata of the phylumChordata, characterized by the lack of jaws. The group consists of both living (cyclostomes such as hagfishes and lampreys) and extinctclades (e.g. conodonts and cephalaspidomorphs, among others). They are sister to vertebrates with jaws known as gnathostomes, who evolved from jawless ancestors during the early Silurian by developing folding articulations in the first pairs of gill arches.

Molecular data, both from rRNA and from mtDNA as well as embryological data, strongly supports the hypothesis that both groups of living agnathans, hagfishes and lampreys, are more closely related to each other than to jawed fish, forming the superclass Cyclostomi.

The oldest fossil agnathans appeared in the Cambrian. Living jawless fish comprise about 120 species in total. Hagfish are considered members of the subphylumVertebrata, because they secondarily lost vertebrae; before this event was inferred from molecular and developmental data, the Craniata hypothesis was accepted (and is still sometimes used as a strictly morphological descriptor) to reference hagfish plus vertebrates.