Conodonts Temporal range: Upper Cambrian to Upper Triassic 495–199.6 million years ago
Reconstruction of a conodont
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Subphylum:	Vertebrata
Class:	Conodonta
Synonyms
Conodontophorida

Conodont elements from the Mississippian period, Pennsylvania.

Elements of Manticolepis subrecta, a conodont from the Devonian of Poland.

Conodonts are an extinct class of the phylum Chordata. They are now regarded as vertebrates, though the issue is still a live one.

For many years conodonts were known only from their feeding apparatus, which fossilises well. This is because most of the conodont animal was soft-bodied, so everything but the teeth were not fossilised in normal circumstances.

It was not until early 1980s that the conodont teeth were found with trace fossils of the host organism. It came from the Lower Carboniferous lagerstätte near Edinburgh, Scotland.