Drepanaspis

Drepanaspis
Temporal range: Early Devonian
Drepanaspis gemuendenensis reconstruction
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Class: †Heterostraci
Order: Pteraspidomorphes
Family: Psammosteidae
Genus: Drepanaspis
Type species
Drepanaspis gemuendenensis
Schluter, 1887
Species
  • D. gemuendenensis
  • D. sehrieli GROSS, 1933
  • D. lipperti GROSS, 1937
  • D. jaegeri TARLO, 1964
  • D. earteri (McCoY, 1851)
  • D. edwardsi TARLO, 1964

Drepanaspis is an extinct genus of primitive jawless fish from Early Devonian marine strata of Europe. D. gemuendenensis, of the Hunsrück lagerstätte is the best known, and most thoroughly studied species, as it is known from several articulated specimens.

Fossil of Drepanaspis sp. in the National Museum of Nature and Science, Tokyo, Japan.
Fossil of Drepanaspis sp. in the Field Museum of Natural History.

It was a flattened creature with a heavily armored body, superficially ray-like in appearance. Its mouth faced upwards, unlike most other Heterostracans, which had downward-facing mouths. Drepanaspis also had small, widely spaced eyes. It is presumed to have foraged the ocean floor for food.[1]

This frying-pan shaped fish may have been the ancestor of the giant, meter-long, meter-wide Psammosteid heterostracans of the late Devonian.

References

  1. ↑ Palmer, D., ed. (1999). The Marshall Illustrated Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Animals. London: Marshall Editions. p. 24. ISBN 1-84028-152-9.
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