Related Research Articles
Chondrichthyes is a class of jawed fish that contains the cartilaginous fish or chondrichthyians, which all have skeletons primarily composed of cartilage. They can be contrasted with the Osteichthyes or bony fish, which have skeletons primarily composed of bone tissue. Chondrichthyes are aquatic vertebrates with paired fins, paired nares, placoid scales, conus arteriosus in the heart, and a lack of opecula and swim bladders. Within the infraphylum Gnathostomata, cartilaginous fishes are distinct from all other jawed vertebrates.
Conodonts are an extinct group of agnathan (jawless) vertebrates resembling eels, classified in the class Conodonta. For many years, they were known only from their tooth-like oral elements, which are usually found in isolation and are now called conodont elements. Knowledge about soft tissues remains limited. They existed in the world's oceans for over 300 million years, from the Cambrian to the beginning of the Jurassic. Conodont elements are widely used as index fossils, fossils used to define and identify geological periods.
Gnathostomata are the jawed vertebrates. Gnathostome diversity comprises roughly 60,000 species, which accounts for 99% of all living vertebrates, including humans. In addition to opposing jaws, living gnathostomes have true teeth, paired appendages, the elastomeric protein of elastin, and a horizontal semicircular canal of the inner ear, along with physiological and cellular anatomical characters such as the myelin sheaths of neurons, and an adaptive immune system that has the discrete lymphoid organs of spleen and thymus, and uses V(D)J recombination to create antigen recognition sites, rather than using genetic recombination in the variable lymphocyte receptor gene.
Acanthodii or acanthodians is an extinct class of gnathostomes. They are currently considered to represent a paraphyletic grade of various fish lineages basal to extant Chondrichthyes, which includes living sharks, rays, and chimaeras. Acanthodians possess a mosaic of features shared with both osteichthyans and chondrichthyans. In general body shape, they were similar to modern sharks, but their epidermis was covered with tiny rhomboid platelets like the scales of holosteians.
Thelodonti is a class of extinct Palaeozoic jawless fishes with distinctive scales instead of large plates of armor.
Derek Ernest Gilmor Briggs is an Irish palaeontologist and taphonomist based at Yale University. Briggs is one of three palaeontologists, along with Harry Blackmore Whittington and Simon Conway Morris, who were key in the reinterpretation of the fossils of the Burgess Shale. He is the Yale University G. Evelyn Hutchinson Professor of Geology and Geophysics, Curator of Invertebrate Paleontology at Yale's Peabody Museum of Natural History, and former Director of the Peabody Museum.
Philip Conrad James Donoghue FRS is a British palaeontologist and Professor of Palaeobiology at the University of Bristol.
Emily Rayfield is a British palaeontologist, who is a Professor in Palaeobiology in the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol.
Richard John Aldridge was a British palaeontologist and academic, who was Bennett Professor of Geology at the University of Leicester.
Mark Andrew Purnell is a British palaeontologist, Professor of Palaeobiology at the University of Leicester.
M. Paul Smith is a British palaeontologist, head of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History and professor in Kellogg College. Previously he was Professor of Palaeobiology at the University of Birmingham, head of the university's School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, and Director of its Lapworth Museum of Geology. He received his BSc from the University of Leicester and his PhD from the University of Nottingham.
Euan N.K. Clarkson FRSE is a British palaeontologist and writer.
The evolution of fish began about 530 million years ago during the Cambrian explosion. It was during this time that the early chordates developed the skull and the vertebral column, leading to the first craniates and vertebrates. The first fish lineages belong to the Agnatha, or jawless fish. Early examples include Haikouichthys. During the late Cambrian, eel-like jawless fish called the conodonts, and small mostly armoured fish known as ostracoderms, first appeared. Most jawless fish are now extinct; but the extant lampreys may approximate ancient pre-jawed fish. Lampreys belong to the Cyclostomata, which includes the extant hagfish, and this group may have split early on from other agnathans.
Sam Giles is a palaeobiologist at the University of Birmingham. Her research combines modern imaging with fossils to understand the evolution of life, in particular that of early fish, and in 2015 "rewrote" the vertebrate family tree. She was a 2017 L'Oréal-UNESCO Rising Star and won the 2019 Geological Society of London Lyell Fund.
Susannah "Susie" Catherine Rose Maidment is a British palaeontologist at the Natural History Museum, London. She is internationally recognised for her research on ornithischian dinosaur evolution, and was awarded the 2016 Hodson Award of the Palaeontological Association and the 2017 Lyell Fund of the Geological Society of London. She was featured as a 2019 National Geographic Women of Impact.
Varavudh Suteethorn, or Warawut Suteethorn is a Thai palaeontologist and geologist. He is the current director of the Palaeontological Research and Education Centre, Mahasarakham University. He is best known for his work on vertebrate paleontology in northeastern Thailand, having contributed to the discovery of many fossil taxa and dig sites in the Khorat Plateau, as a part of a long-standing collaboration between Thai and French scientists.
Richard James Butler is a vertebrate palaeontologist at the University of Birmingham, where he holds the title of professor of palaeobiology. His research focuses on ornithischian dinosaur evolution, dinosaur origins, and fossil tetrapod macroevolution.
Based on Estonian Vikipeedia
Panderodus Is an extinct genus of jawless fish belonging to the order Conodonta. This genus had a long temporal range, surviving from the middle Ordovician to late Devonian. In 2021, extremely rare body fossils of Panderodus from the Waukesha Biota were described, and it revealed that Panderodus had a more thick body compared to the more slender bodies of more advanced conodonts. It also revealed that this conodont was a macrophagous predator, meaning it went after large prey.
Maria Eithne McNamara is an Irish palaeontologist. She is Professor of Palaeobiology at University College Cork.
References
- ↑ http://www.gees.bham.ac.uk/staff/sansomij.shtml University of Birmingham: Ivan Sansom (Accessed April 2011)
- ↑ http://jgs.lyellcollection.org/content/168/2/local/front-matter.pdf Journal of the Geological Society: Editorial Board (Accessed April 2011)
- ↑ http://www.palass.org/modules.php?name=palaeo&page=119&sec=awards The Palaeontological Association: Hodson Award (Accessed April 2011)
