Protopanderodontida

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Kingdom:Animalia
Phylum:Chordata
Subphylum:Vertebrata
Infraphylum:Agnatha
Protopanderodontida
Temporal range: Furongian (Upper Cambrian) – Wenlock Descendant taxa Panderodontida and Prioniodontida survive to the Middle Devonian and Late Triassic, respectively
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Subphylum: Vertebrata
Infraphylum: Agnatha
Class: Conodonta
Clade: Euconodonta
Order: Protopanderodontida
Sweet, 1988
Synonyms
  • Distacodontacea Miller, 1981

Protopanderodontida is an order of conodonts which lived from the Furongian (Late Cambrian) to the Wenlock (mid-Silurian). They had a relative simple apparatus with several pairs of coniform elements (single-cusped tooth-like structures) in the mouth, lacking the more elaborate arrangements found in "complex conodonts" (Prioniodontida).[1]

Protopanderodontids were a common component of Ordovician conodont faunas, and were probably a grade ancestral to later conodonts in the orders Panderodontida and Prioniodontida. They may have been the earliest conodonts with an odd number of elements in the jaw. A single median symmetrical element (the S0 element) is found at the midline of the apparatus, potentially originating from a fusion of paired coniform elements in an earlier ancestor.[2] The only putative protopanderodontid to preserve an articulated partial apparatus is Besselodus arcticus, from the Late Ordovician of Greenland.[3][4][5]

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References

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