Doryaspis
Encyclopedia
Doryaspis (also known by its synonym, "Lyktaspis") is an extinct genus of primitive jawless fish
that lived in the Devonian
period. Fossils have been discovered in Spitsbergen
.
The animals had a canteen-shaped body armor, and had large branchial plates that extended out and curved downward in a triangular shape, very similar to those of the pycnosteids. An element of the median oral plates (that would correspond to the lower lip or chin in gnathostomes) extends out in a long rod-shaped appendage, called the "pseudorostrum." The tail is long and slender, and has large rows of thick scales.
In the type species, D. nathorsti, the lateral edges of the branchial plates and of the pseudorostrum are serrated. The second species, D. arctica, is smaller, and lacks serrated edges.
Fish
Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...
that lived in the Devonian
Devonian
The Devonian is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic Era spanning from the end of the Silurian Period, about 416.0 ± 2.8 Mya , to the beginning of the Carboniferous Period, about 359.2 ± 2.5 Mya...
period. Fossils have been discovered in Spitsbergen
Spitsbergen
Spitsbergen is the largest and only permanently populated island of the Svalbard archipelago in Norway. Constituting the western-most bulk of the archipelago, it borders the Arctic Ocean, the Norwegian Sea and the Greenland Sea...
.
The animals had a canteen-shaped body armor, and had large branchial plates that extended out and curved downward in a triangular shape, very similar to those of the pycnosteids. An element of the median oral plates (that would correspond to the lower lip or chin in gnathostomes) extends out in a long rod-shaped appendage, called the "pseudorostrum." The tail is long and slender, and has large rows of thick scales.
In the type species, D. nathorsti, the lateral edges of the branchial plates and of the pseudorostrum are serrated. The second species, D. arctica, is smaller, and lacks serrated edges.