Arandaspis
{{Short description|Extinct genus of jawless fishes}}
{{Automatic taxobox
| fossil_range = Early Ordovician
{{Fossil range|480|470}}
| image = Arandaspis prionotolepis fossil.jpg
| image_caption = Fossil of Arandaspis prionotolepis from Natural History Museum in London
| taxon = Arandaspis
| authority = Ritchie & Gilbert-Tomlinson, 1977
| type_species = †Arandaspis prionotolepis
| type_species_authority = Ritchie & Gilbert-Tomlinson, 1977
| subdivision_ranks = Species
| subdivision_ref = {{cite web|title=Pteraspidomorphi|url=http://www.helsinki.fi/~mhaaramo/metazoa/deuterostoma/chordata/agnatha/pteraspidomorphi.html|accessdate=28 October 2013}}
| subdivision =
- A. prionotolepis Ritchie & Gilbert-Tomlinson, 1977
- A. sp. Young, 1997
}}
Arandaspis prionotolepis is an extinct species of jawless fish that lived in the Ordovician period, about 480 to 470 million years ago. Its remains were found in the Stairway Sandstone near Alice Springs, Australia in 1959, but it was not determined that they were the oldest known vertebrates until the late 1960s. Arandaspis is named after a local Indigenous Australian people, the Aranda (now currently called Arrernte).
Description
Image:Arandaspis Wiki2.png, with trunk morphology based on speculation in Ritchie and Gilbert-Tomlinson (1977) and tail based on Sacabambaspis]]
Arandaspis is estimated to reach around {{convert|12-14|cm|abbr=on|0}} long, with a body covered in rows of knobbly armoured scutes. The front of the body and the head were protected by hard plates with openings for the eyes, nostrils and gills. It probably was a filter-feeder. The morphology of its trunk and tail is unknown. According to comparisons with other early ostracoderms, it would have lacked paired fins and the caudal fin would be of a simple shape,{{Cite journal |last=Ritchie |first=Alexander |last2=Gilbert-Tomlinson |first2=Joyce |date=1977 |title=First Ordovician vertebrates from the Southern Hemisphere |url=http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03115517708527770 |journal=Alcheringa: An Australasian Journal of Palaeontology |language=en |volume=1 |issue=4 |pages=351–368 |doi=10.1080/03115517708527770 |issn=0311-5518|url-access=subscription }} although another arandaspid Sacabambaspis had a tail consisting of dorsal and ventral webs and an elongated notochordal lobe.{{Cite journal |last=Pradel |first=Alan |last2=Sansom |first2=Ivan. J |last3=Gagnier |first3=Pierre-Yves |last4=Cespedes |first4=Ricardo |last5=Janvier |first5=Philippe |date=2006-11-14 |title=The tail of the Ordovician fish Sacabambaspis |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2006.0557 |journal=Biology Letters |volume=3 |issue=1 |pages=73–76 |doi=10.1098/rsbl.2006.0557 |issn=1744-9561|pmc=2373808 }}
See also
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
- {{cci}}
{{Pteraspidomorphi|B.}}
{{Taxonbar|from=Q762648}}
Category:Pteraspidomorphi genera
Category:Ordovician jawless fish
Category:Paleozoic fish of Australia
Category:Early Ordovician genus first appearances
Category:Early Ordovician genus extinctions
Category:Fossil taxa described in 1977
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