| Proconodontus Temporal range: | |
|---|---|
Scientific classification  | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | † Conodonta |
| Order: | † Proconodontida |
| Family: | † Proconodontidae Lindström, 1970 |
| Genus: | † Proconodontus Miller, 1969 |
| Species | |
| |
Proconodontus is an extinct genus of conodonts in the monotypic family Proconodontidae. [1] The specimens are found in Cambrian formations. [2] [3] [4]
Conodonts are an extinct group of jawless vertebrates, classified in the class Conodonta. They are primarily known from their hard, mineralised tooth-like structures called "conodont elements" that in life were present in the oral cavity and used to process food. Rare soft tissue remains suggest that they had elongate eel-like bodies with large eyes. Conodonts were a long-lasting group with over 300 million years of existence from the Cambrian to the beginning of the Jurassic. Conodont elements are highly distinctive to particular species and are widely used in biostratigraphy as indicative of particular periods of geological time.
Agnatha is a paraphyletic infraphylum of non-gnathostome vertebrates, or jawless fish, in the phylum Chordata, subphylum Vertebrata, consisting of both living (cyclostomes) and extinct. Among recent animals, cyclostomes are sister to all vertebrates with jaws, known as gnathostomes.
The Furongian is the fourth and final epoch and series of the Cambrian. It lasted from 497 to 485.4 million years ago. It succeeds the Miaolingian series of the Cambrian and precedes the Lower Ordovician Tremadocian Stage. It is subdivided into three stages: the Paibian, Jiangshanian and the unnamed 10th stage of the Cambrian.
The Conococheague Formation is a mapped Appalachian bedrock unit of Cambrian age, consisting primarily of limestone and dolomite. It occurs in central Maryland, southern and central Pennsylvania, the Valley and Ridge of Virginia and easternmost West Virginia.
Stage 10 of the Cambrian is the still unnamed third and final stage of the Furongian series. It follows the Jiangshanian and precedes the Ordovician Tremadocian Stage. The proposed lower boundary is the first appearance of the trilobite Lotagnostus americanus around 489.5 million years ago, but other fossils are also being discussed. The upper boundary is defined as the appearance of the conodont Iapetognathus fluctivagus which marks the beginning of the Tremadocian and is radiometrically dated as 485.4 million years ago.
Westergaardodina is a species-rich genus of spine, U or W-shaped paraconodont known from Middle Cambrian to Lower Ordovician strata.
Iapetognathus is a genus of cordylodan conodonts. It is one of the oldest denticulate euconodont genera known.
Cordylodontidae is a family of conodonts.
Proconodontida is an order of conodonts which originated in the late Cambrian (Furongian) and persisted partly through the Ordovician. The ancestral proconodont, Proconodontus, was one of the earliest euconodonts to appear. Proconodonts are often equated with the broader group Cavidonti, which occupies one side of a basal division in the evolution of early euconodonts in the Cambrian. All other euconodonts occupy Conodonti, the other side of the Cambrian split.
Paraconodonts (Paraconodontida) are an extinct order of probable chordates, closely related or ancestral to euconodonts. The order contains the superfamily Furnishinacea, itself containing the families Westergaardodinidae and Furnishinidae.
Furnishinidae is an extinct family of paraconodonts.
Gapparodus is an extinct genus of conodonts in the family Furnishinidae. Gapparodus gapparites is a species of the Early Cambrian of Shuijingtuo Formation in China.
Acanthodus is an extinct genus of conodonts.
Kallidontus is an extinct genus of conodonts.
Utahconus is an extinct genus of conodonts.
Variabiloconus is an extinct genus of conodonts.
Eoconodontus is an extinct genus of conodonts of the Late Cambrian. It is a two-elements genus from the Proconodontus lineage.
Protoconodonts are an extinct group of Cambrian animals known from fossilized phosphatic tooth-like structures. They were originally described as an informal group of early conodonts, though more recent studies consider them to be more closely related to chaetognaths.
Protohertzina is a genus of conodonts or, possibly, Chaetognaths, found at the beginning of the Cambrian explosion.
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