Dunkleosteus
| Dunkleosteus Temporal range: Devonian, Possible Early Givetian record | |
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| Dunkleosteus skull, Queensland Museum | |
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| Genus: | †Dunkleosteus Lehman, 1956 |
| Type species | |
| †Dunkleosteus terrelli Newberry, 1873 | |
Dunkleosteus was a prehistoric arthrodire. It was a primitive jawed fish from the later Devonian period, about 382.31 to 358.86 million years ago. Fossils have been found in Morocco, Africa, Poland, Belgium, China, and the USA. This fish was a pelagic creature living in open waters.
Dunkleosteus first appeared in the Frasnian (Late Devonian), and the group became extinct during the transition from the Late Devonian to the beginning of the Carboniferous, along with other "placoderm" groups, leaving no descendants.
Description
This top predator is currently estimated to be 11.5 ft (3.5 m) long and had large, scissor-like cutting jaws with serrated, razor-sharp bones but no teeth. Its skull was around 2 feet (61 cm) long. It had a jointed neck, likely a deep body resembling a tuna with well-developed fins given its dermal skeleton dimensions and inferred ecology.
Species
- †D. amblyodoratus Carr & Hlavin, 2010
- †D. belgicus (?) (Newberry, 1873)
- †D. denisoni (Kulczycki, 1957)
- †D. magnificus (Hussakof & Bryant, 1919)
- †D. marsaisi Lehmann, 1956
- †D. missouriensis (Branson, 1914)
- †D. newberryi (Clarke, 1885)
- †D. raveri Carr & Hlavin, 2010
- †D. terrelli (Newberry, 1873 [originally Dinichthys])
- †D. tuderensis Lebedev et. al., 2023
References
- ↑ Dunkleosteus Newberry 1874. Fossilworks.
- ↑ Tamisiea, Jack (4 March 2023). "Dunk Was Chunky, but Still Deadly". The New York Times.
- 1 2 Engelman, Russell K. (2023-02-21). "A Devonian Fish Tale: A New Method of Body Length Estimation Suggests Much Smaller Sizes for Dunkleosteus terrelli (Placodermi: Arthrodira)". Diversity. 15 (3): 318. doi:10.3390/d15030318. ISSN 1424-2818.
{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link) - ↑ "Structure, Growth and Histology of Gnathal Elements in Dunkleosteus (Arthrodira, Placodermi), with a Description of a New Species from the Famennian (Upper Devonian) of the Tver Region (North-Western Russia)". Paleoecology, Diversity, Taphonomy, Phylogeny, and Evolution of Paleozoic Fishes.