Furcacaudiformes
Extinct order of jawless fishes
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Furcacaudiformes is an extinct order of jawless fish in the class Thelodonti.[1]
| Furcacaudiformes | |
|---|---|
| |
| Furcacauda fredholmae | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Infraphylum: | Agnatha |
| Class: | †Thelodonti |
| Order: | †Furcacaudiformes Wilson & Caldwell, 1998 |
| Type genus | |
| †Furcacauda Wilson & Caldwell, 1998 | |
| Families | |
| |
Because the paucity of intact fossils, especially since some families are known entirely from scale fossils, taxonomy of thelodonts is based primarily on scale morphology. A 2009 assessment of thelodont taxonomy by Wilson and Märss merges the orders Loganelliiformes, Katoporiida and Shieliiformes into Thelodontiformes, places families Lanarkiidae and Nikoliviidae into Furcacaudiformes (because of scale morphology) and establishes Archipelepidiformes as the basal-most order.[2]
