Gabreyaspididae
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Gabreyaspididae Temporal range: Early Devonian | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Reconstruction of Gabreyaspis | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Infraphylum: | Agnatha |
| Class: | †Pteraspidomorpha |
| Subclass: | †Heterostraci |
| Order: | †Cyathaspidiformes |
| Superfamily: | †Amphiaspidoidei |
| Family: | †Gabreyaspididae |
| Genera | |
Gabreyaspididae is a family of extinct amphiaspidid heterostracan agnathans whose fossils are restricted to Lower Devonian marine strata of Siberia near the Taimyr Peninsula.[1] In life, all amphiaspidids are thought to be benthic animals that lived most of their lives mostly buried in the sediment of a series of hypersaline lagoons. Amphiaspids are easily distinguished from other heterostracans in that all of the plates of the cephalothoracic armor are fused into a single, muff-like unit, so that the forebody of the living animal would have looked, in the case of gabreyaspidids, vaguely like a horseshoe crab with a pair of small, or degenerated eyes, with each flanked by a preorbital opening, and a simple, slit-like mouth positioned slightly ventrally.
Gabreyaspidids differ from the amphiaspidoid amphiaspids of Amphiaspididae primarily due to ornamentation unique to each family,[1] and differs from amphiaspidoid amphiaspids of Olbiaspididae in that gabreyaspidids' mouths are ventrally positioned, whereas the mouths of olbiaspidids are positioned anteriorly.
