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Placoderms | |
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Dunkleosteus skull | |
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Class: | †Placodermi McCoy, 1848 |
The placoderms (Placodermi: Greek = plated skin) were a class of armoured prehistoric fish, which lived from the mid Silurian to the end of the Devonian period. Their head and thorax were covered by armoured plates; the rest of the body was scaled or naked, depending on the species. Placoderms were among the first jawed fish, the Gnathostomata. A 380 million year old fossil of one species is the oldest-known example of live birth.
The placoderms were hugely successful in the Devonian period, which is sometimes called the 'Age of Fish'. In the Upper Devonian, a series of extinction events devastated the marine fauna. As the placoderms were predators, this caused a swift decline in their numbers, and the class was entirely extinct by the end of the Devonian.