02 - The First Vertebrates. Oceans of The Paleozoic Era PDF

THE FIRST
VERTEBRATES
OCEANS OF THE
PALEOZOIC ERA
THE PREHISTORIC EARTH

Early Life:
The Cambrian Period
The First Vertebrates:
Oceans of the Paleozoic Era
March Onto Land:
The Silurian Period to the Middle Triassic Epochs
Dawn of the Dinosaur Age:
The Late Triassic & Early Jurassic Epochs
Time of the Giants:
The Middle & Late Jurassic Epochs
Last of the Dinosaurs:
The Cretaceous Period
The Rise of Mammals:
The Paleocene & Eocene Epochs
The Age of Mammals:
The Oligocene & Miocene Epochs
Primates and Human Ancestors:
The Pliocene Epoch
Early Humans:
The Pleistocene & Holocene Epochs
THE FIRST
VERTEBRATES
OCEANS OF THE
PALEOZOIC ERA
Thom Holmes
THE PREHISTORIC EARTH: The First Vertebrates

Copyright 2008 by Infobase Publishing
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Holmes, Thom.
The first vertebrates / Thom Holmes.
p. cm. (The prehistoric Earth)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8160-5958-4 (hardcover)
1. Fishes, FossilStudy and teachingUnited States. 2. Geology, StratigraphicPaleozoic.
I. Title. II. Series.
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2007045329
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CONTENTS
Preface
acknowledgments
foreword
introduction
6
9
11
14
Section One: The World of the Paleozoic Era

Chapter 1 Continents and Climates
of the Paleozoic Era
Chapter 2 Paleozoic Mass Extinctions
Section Two: The First Vertebrates
Chapter 3 Vertebrate Traits
Chapter 4 Vertebrate Origins
Section Three: The Rise of the Fishes
Chapter 5 Jawless Fishes
Chapter 6 Vertebrate Innovations
Chapter 7 Cartilaginous Fishes:
The Sharks and Rays
Chapter 8 Bony Fishes
17
Conclusion
appendixOne:Geologictimescale
appendixtwo:Positionalterms
Glossary
Chapterbibliography
furtherreading
PictureCredits
index
abouttheauthor
5
19
35
53
54
66
79
80
99
114
135
157
158
159
160
170
177
181
182
188
PREFACE
To be curious about the future, one must know something about
the past.
Humans have been recording events in the world around them
for about 5,300 years. That is how long it has been since the Sume-
rian people, in a land that today is southern Iraq, invented the first
known written language. Writing allowed people to document what
they saw happening around them. The written word gave a new
permanency to life. Language, and writing in particular, made his-
tory possible.
History is a marvelous human invention, but how do people know
about things that happened before language existed? Or before hu-
mans existed? Events that took place before human record keeping
began are called prehistory. Prehistoric life is, by its definition, any
life that existed before human beings existed and were able to record
for posterity what was happening in the world around them.
Prehistory is as much a product of the human mind as history.
Scientists who specialize in unraveling clues of prehistoric life are
called paleontologists. They study life that existed before human
history, often hundreds of thousands and millions of years in the
past. Their primary clues come from fossils of animals and plants
and from geologic evidence about Earths topography and climate.
Through the skilled and often imaginative interpretation of fos-
sils, paleontologists are able to reconstruct the appearance, life-
style, environment, and relationships of ancient life-forms. While
paleontology is grounded in a study of prehistoric life, it draws on
many other sciences to complete an accurate picture of the past.
Information from the fields of biology, zoology, geology, chemistry,
meteorology, and even astrophysics is called into play to help the
paleontologist view the past through the lens of todays knowledge.
6
Preface 7
If a writer were to write a history of all sports, would it be enough

to write only about table tennis? Certainly not. On the shelves of
bookstores and libraries, however, we find just such a slanted per-
spective toward the story of the dinosaurs. Dinosaurs have captured
our imagination at the expense of many other equally fascinating,
terrifying, and unusual creatures. Dinosaurs were not alone in the
pantheon of prehistoric life, but it is rare to find a book that also
mentions the many other kinds of life that came before and after
the dinosaurs.
The Prehistoric Earth is a series that explores the evolution of life
from its earliest forms 3.5 billion years ago until the emergence of
modern humans some 300,000 years ago. Four volumes in the series
trace the story of the dinosaurs. Six other volumes are devoted to
the kinds of animals that evolved before, during, and after the reign
of the dinosaurs. The Prehistoric Earth covers the early explosion of
life in the oceans; the invasion of the land by the first land animals;
the rise of fishes, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds; and the
emergence of modern humans.
The Prehistoric Earth series is written for readers in high school.
Based on the latest scientific findings in paleontology, The Prehis
toric Earth is the most comprehensive and up-to-date series of its
kind for this age group.
EXPlORING PAST lIfE

The language of science is used throughout this series, with ample
definition and with an extensive glossary provided in each volume.
Important concepts involving geology, evolution, and the lifestyles
of early animals are presented logically, step by step. Illustrations,
photographs, tables, and maps reinforce and enhance the books
presentation of the story of prehistoric life.
While telling the story of prehistoric life, the author hopes that
many readers will be sufficiently intrigued to continue studies
on their own. For this purpose, throughout each volume, special
Think About It sidebars offer additional insights or interesting
exercises for readers who wish to explore certain topics. Each book
8 thefirstvertebrates
in the series also provides a chapter-by-chapter bibliography of

books, journals, and Web sites.
Only about one-tenth of 1 percent of all species of prehistoric
animals are known from fossils. A multitude of discoveries remain
to be made in the field of paleontology. It is with earnest, best wishes
that I hope that some of these discoveries will be made by readers
inspired by this series.
Thom Holmes
Jersey City, New Jersey
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank the many dedicated and hardworking people
at Chelsea House. A special debt of gratitude goes to my editors,
Shirley White, Brian Belval, and Frank Darmstadt, for their sup-
port and guidance in conceiving and making The Prehistoric Earth
a reality. Frank and Brian were instrumental in fine-tuning the fea-
tures of the series as well as accepting my ambitious plan for creat-
ing a comprehensive reference for students. Brian greatly influenced
the development of the color illustration program and supported
my efforts to integrate the work of some of the best artists in the
field, most notably John Sibbick, whose work appears throughout
the set. Shirleys excellent questions about the science behind the
books contributed greatly to the readability of the result.
I am privileged to have worked with some of the brightest minds
in paleontology on this series. Ted Daeschler of the Academy of
Natural Sciences in Philadelphia reviewed the draft of The First
Vertebrates and made many important suggestions that affected the
course of the work. Ted also wrote the Foreword for the volume.
The excellent copyediting of Mary Ellen Kelly was both thought-
ful and vital to shaping the final manuscript. I thank Mary Ellen
for her valuable review and suggestions that help make the books a
success.
In many ways, a set of books such as this requires years of prepa-
ration. Some of the work is educational, and I owe much gratitude to
Dr. Peter Dodson of the University of Pennsylvania for his gracious
and inspiring tutelage over the years. Another dimension of prepa-
ration requires experience digging fossils, and for giving me these
opportunities I thank my friends and colleagues who have taken
me into the field with them, including Phil Currie, Rodolfo Coria,
Matthew Lammana, and Ruben Martinez. Finally comes the work
9
needed to put thoughts down on paper and complete the draft of a

book, a process that always takes many more hours than I plan on.
I thank Anne for bearing with my constant state of busy-ness and
for helping me remember the important things in life. You are an
inspiration to me. I also thank my daughter Shaina, the genius in
the family and another inspiration, for always being supportive and
humoring her fathers obsession with prehistoric life.
FOREWORD
The Paleozoic Era witnessed a dramatic and far-reaching revolution
in the history of life on Earth. Near the start of the Paleozoic Era,
500 million years ago, backboned animals were no more than small,
wriggling ribbons of muscle specialized for life on the sandy shoals
of shallow marine ecosystems. By the end of the Paleozoic Era, 250
million years later, vertebrate life had diversified into a wide range
of complex forms that filled ecological niches throughout Earths
biosphere. This new diversity of vertebrates included organisms
with a wide range of body plans, some of which would survive the
test of time and others of which would disappear, leaving fossilized
remains but no living descendents in the modern world.
Many people are interested in the wide diversity and seemingly
bizarre nature of past life. This volume of Thom Holmess series The
Prehistoric Earth delivers a menagerie of early vertebrates and offers
a detailed account of the fascinatingly quirky origin of backboned
animals and the rise of fish. The First Vertebrates provides impor-
tant lessons in the nature of the evolutionary process as it makes
a comprehensive examination of early experimentation with the
vertebrate body plan. From todays perspective, life in the Paleozoic
oceans may seem strange; but the features that developed in the
first vertebrates that lived in those oceans and in their subsequent
lineages are crucially important to the history of life. The features of
those Paleozoic vertebrates determined the basic design that verte-
brate groups would carry forward through evolutionary time.
In The First Vertebrates, Thom Holmes sets the stage for the
Paleozoic explosion of vertebrate life with a review of the changing
physical conditions on Earth during this crucial interval. Conti-
nental drift and changing climates had a profound influence on
the ecosystems where early vertebrates lived. Sometimes conditions
11
12 the first vertebrates
provided stable conditions under which life thrived and diversified;

at other times, Earth went through periods of rapid change dur-
ing which many kinds of life perished in mass extinctions. Several
new discoveries discussed in this volume have greatly informed
our knowledge of the early stages in the origin of vertebrates. The
identification of the conodont and of the details of that animals
anatomy is a particularly interesting example of a detective story in
paleontology.
Thom Holmess survey of the agnathans, or jawless fishes, pro-
vides a rare glimpse at these early experiments in free-swimming
vertebrates. The variety and nature of the underappreciated agna-
thans are rarely discussed in popular books, but here you will learn
about the dazzling diversity of these primitive vertebrates. Such
creatures as ostracoderms, heterostracans, and anaspids probably
are not the stuff of Hollywood movies, but for their place in the his-
tory of vertebrate life, they deserve the attention that Holmes gives
them.
By the Late Ordovician Epoch, the first jawed vertebrates made
their appearance, and a new phase of evolutionary experimentation
began. A wide range of novel ecological opportunities for fish were
made manifest in the evolution of new features in both predators
and their prey. Acanthodians and placoderms are two fascinating
groups of jawed vertebrates that became quite diverse for a time,
particularly during the Devonian Period, but that ultimately did not
persist beyond the Paleozoic Era. These forms lived alongside early
examples of cartilaginous and bony fish, groups that would endure
through time and diversify into the great variety of fish and limbed
vertebrates that we know today.
Some of the Paleozoic sharks discussed in The First Vertebrates
have amazing features: a huge whorl of sharp teeth protruding from
the chin in Helicoprion, for example, and a brushlike dorsal-fin
appendage in Stethacanthus. Thom Holmes clearly delights in these
creatures and certainly enjoys bringing them to the attention of his
readers.
Foreword 13
The bony fishes, which are divided into ray-finned and lobef inned groups, round out the cast of characters in The First Ver
tebrates. As usual, Holmes provides an up-to-date review of these
important lineages and includes the latest discoveries.
Evolutionary change in vertebrates is always constrained by the
fundamental design features of the vertebrate body, many of which
were first established in Paleozoic fish. The First Vertebrates pro-
vides a firm foundation for understanding the great profusion of
fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals that derived from
Paleozoic fish. It is no exaggeration to say that we can trace the ori-
gin of some of the basic traits of our own bodies back to creatures
that swam in the watery cradle of the Paleozoic oceans.
Ted Daeschler
Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia
June 2006
INTRODUCTION
The Cambrian Periodthe first of the Paleozoic Erawas notable
for its remarkable explosion of multicelled organisms with hard
parts such as shells and exoskeletons. The Cambrian saw the begin-
ning of an escalating confrontation between predator and prey. An
explosion of diverse life-forms during the Cambrian laid the foun-
dation for all major animal phyla that exist today. Yet as remarkable
as it was, life during the Cambrian Period was only the beginning of
a biological drama that would extend for another 237 million years
of the Paleozoic Era.
The First Vertebrates begins the story of the vertebrates, some
of the most familiar of all animals. Humans are just one of about
45,000 living species of vertebrates. The prehistoric past was popu-
lated by hundreds of thousands of vertebrate species (now extinct)
only a fraction of which are currently understood from the fossil
record. Vertebrates of one form or anotherbeginning with the
fishes and extending through amphibians, reptiles, dinosaurs, birds,
and mammalshave played an important role in ecological niches
worldwide for nearly every time span of their existence.
The denizens of the Paleozoic oceans are the subject of The First
Vertebrates. They are the first players in the unfolding drama of
marine and terrestrial vertebrate evolution that occupies the stage
throughout the rest of the saga of The Prehistoric Earth.
OvERvIEW Of THE fIRST vERTEBRATES

The rise of the first vertebrates is synonymous with the Paleozoic Era.
This was a time span of increasing ecological complexity. The First
Vertebrates begins, in Section 1, with a look at the dramatic geological
and climatic conditions of the Paleozoic that made the evolution of
vertebrate species possible. Chapter 1 describes widespread changes to
14
introduction 15
ocean and land environments, including worldwide climate changes

that served as catalysts for the diversification of species. Chapter 2
explains how a series of catastrophic mass extinctions changed the
direction of evolution several times during the Paleozoic Era, leading
to the demise of many species and the rise of others.
Vertebrates are the most popular residents of natural history
museums around the world. There is an obvious bias toward the
display of big, bony skeletons over the display of the remains of
any invertebrate. This bias exists despite the fact that animals with
backbones make up less than 5 percent of all known animal species.
One reason for the popularity of animals with backbones is that
their long evolutionary history can be traced through millions of
years of extraordinary fossil preservation. In Section 2 of The First
Vertebrates, the emphasis shifts to an examination of vertebrates,
their origins, and their diverse taxa.
The first vertebrates are the stars of Section 2. In Chapter 3, ver-
tebrates are defined by their shared anatomical characteristicsthe
kinds of clues that paleontologists use to identify vertebrate spe-
cies from the distant past. Chapter 4 offers the early fossil record of
vertebrates and recounts the recent discovery of the oldest known
vertebrates, dating from the time of the Cambrian explosion of life
some 525 million years ago.
The four chapters of Section 3 explore the evolution and diversi-
fication of Paleozoic fishes, the first successful groups of vertebrates.
A span from the Ordovician Period to the end of the Permian
Period237 million years of fish evolutionis broken down into
several key stages. Chapter 5 covers the jawless fishes, which are
known for their bony exoskeletons. Chapter 6 investigates the evolu-
tion of key anatomical innovations of vertebrates such as jaws, the
bony skeleton, and paired fins. Chapter 7 introduces the carilagi-
nous sharks and rays. In Chapter 8, The First Vertebrates concludes
with an exploration of the most successful group of backboned
animals, the bony fishes.
Each chapter uses an abundance of tables, maps, figures, and
photos to fully depict the lives, habitats, and changing evolutionary
patterns of Paleozoic organisms. Many chapters also include Think

About It boxes that elaborate on interesting issues, people, and dis-
coveries related to Paleozoic life.
The First Vertebrates builds on foundational principles of geol-
ogy, fossils, and the study of life. Perhaps the most important prin-
ciples to keep in mind as one reads this book are the basic rules
governing evolution: that the direction of evolution is determined
first by the traits inherited by individuals and then by the interac-
tion of each individual with its habitat as well as random mutations
in DNA that make each individual unique. These changes accu-
mulate, generation after generation, and allow species to adapt to
changing conditions in the world around them. As Charles Darwin
(18091882) explained, The small differences distinguishing vari-
eties of the same species steadily tend to increase, till they equal the
greater differences between species of the same genus, or even of
distinct genera. These are the rules of nature that drove the engine
of evolution during the Paleozoic Era and gave rise to forms of life
whose descendants still populate the Earth.
SECTION ONE:
THE WORLD OF THE
PALEOZOIC ERA
Page 18
Blank
1
CONTINENTS
GEOLOGICAND
TIME
CLIMATES
ON
OF THE
PALEOZOIC
PLANET ERA
OUR
The Paleozoic Era stretched back from 251 million to 542 million
years ago. It marked the rise of plant and animal species that eventu-
ally led to the kinds of life we see in todays world. These formative
years were marked by dramatic changes to the geology and climate
of Earthchanges that triggered the development of thousands of
species of organisms. The struggle for survival and the ability to
adapt were played out against a backdrop of radical flux in Earths
habitats. This chapter explores the geological and climatic changes
that affected the evolution of life in the Paleozoic Era.
GEOlOGIC TIME PERIOdS Of THE

PAlEOzOIC ERA
The geologic time scale is a scale for naming long periods of Earths
past. This time scale consists of a nested hierarchy of time spans of
decreasing length, from eons and eras to periods and epochs. The
lengths of these time spans are based on the geology and paleontol-
ogy of the Earth layers that mark their beginnings and ends. Some
of these layers took longer than others to accumulate, a fact that
accounts for the different lengths of the time spans. Many of the
major divisions between geologic time spans are also marked by
significant events, such as mass extinctions, glaciation, and wide-
spread volcanic activity. Such geologic events often mark transitions
and extinctions in the fossil record and restrict the remains of given
plant and animal species to certain layers.
19
The organisms described in this book lived during the Paleozoic

(ancient life) Era, a span of time that lasted for 291 million years.
The Paleozoic has been divided into six periods, each of which ends
with a mass extinction.
Periods of the Paleozoic Era
Time Span
Period
(millions of years ago)
Duration
(millions of years)
Permian
251 to 299
48
Carboniferous
299 to 359
60
Devonian
359 to 416
57
Silurian
416 to 443
27
Ordovician
443 to 488
45
Cambrian
488 to 542
54
The Paleozoic world was subject to many natural events that

would dramatically affect the history of life. The evolving Earth
was experiencing widespread tectonic disruptions, abrupt swings
in global temperature, fluctuating sea levels, and fundamental
changes to the makeup of the planets gaseous atmosphere. The
era was also marked by long spans of temperate warmth con-
trasted with the chilling effect of massive glaciations. The Paleo-
zoic Era was a time of extremes that greatly affected the direction
that life could take.
CONTINENTAL AND OCEANIC CHANGES:

THE ROLE OF PLATE TECTONICS
Earths surface is made up of many large slabs of crust that ride on
top of the planets molten-hot mantle. These slabs are called tec-
tonic plates. A dozen or more of these plates, located on dry land
and beneath the sea, interlock to make up the fragmented crust of
the Earth. The individual forces of heat and gravity that change the
face of the Earth combine to move the continental plates over long
periods of time, a phenomenon called continental drift.
Continents and Climates of the Paleozoic Era 21
The habitats created by the changing face of the Earth served as

the stage for the evolution of the organisms that will be discussed in
the remaining chapters of this book.
Like tectonic plate movements, changes to the level of the oceans
and the formation of ice sheets and polar ice caps are relatively slow
geologic processes. They are also intimately connected. During
periods of glaciation, ice sheets absorb much of the water in Earths
water budget. When this happens, the sea level can drop around the
world, affecting and sometimes wiping out near-shore habitats and
eliminating some species of plants and animals in the process.
The extraordinary rearranging of Earths continents and oceans
during the second half of the Paleozoic Era played havoc with the
habitats of the worlds plants and animals. It is no wonder that the
Paleozoic hosted some of the most severe mass extinction events of
all time.
GLOBAL TEMPERATURES
AND PALEOCLIMATES
The geography of land and sea masses is not the only natural phe-
nomenon that influences the survival and evolution of species.
Climate plays an equally vital role in determining the direction that
life on Earth can take.
The study of prehistoric climates is known as paleoclimatol-
ogy. Scientists draw on a variety of data sources to determine past
climates. Among the leading lines of evidence are the distribution
of climate-sensitive plant and animal fossils, the occurrence of cer-
tain kinds of rock strata known to be restricted to certain kinds of
climates, and a variety of paleoclimate indicators derived from the
study of particular natural phenomena. Among those indicators
are the examination of tree rings (dendrochronology), the study
of the shape and surface area of fossil leaves, and the examination
of ice cores, lake sediment, cave deposits, and the oxygen isotope
content of marine shells. Evidence derived from such studies can
(continues on page 24)
An illustrated guide to continental drift
(continued from page 21)

reveal climatic trends such as average global temperature and
precipitation.
Determining the average global temperature of the distant past
provides critical clues about the life of the past, especially about
the effect of climate changes on ancestors of modern plants and
animals whose sensitivity to temperature fluctuations is well un-
derstood. Of the available techniques for determining past global
temperatures, the use of oxygen isotope readings from marine
shells is one of the most reliable. Using a mass spectrometer, sci-
entists can measure the proportions of certain oxygen isotopes in
calcium carbonate shells. In the study of modern marine shells, it
has been determined that the amount of these isotopes in seawater
varies predictably with the temperature of the ocean. By compar-
ing oxygen isotope readings of modern shells to those of prehistoric
shells, it is possible to chart likely average global temperatures as far
back as the Precambrian Era.
Factors Affecting Global Temperature

Average global temperature is regulated by many interrelated fac-
tors. These include the output of the Sun, the reflective nature of the
Earth, the proximity of the poles to landmasses or oceans, and the
ability of solar radiation to penetrate the atmosphere. Together, these
factors determine how much solar radiation is absorbed or reflected
by the Earth, resulting in a ratio called the global heat budget. The
global heat budget is governed by the following principles.
Incoming radiation from the Sun. The Sun provides a reliable
bombardment of solar radiation. Earth has never experienced a seri-
ous fluctuation in the Suns radiation output that would drastically
alter average global temperature. Scientists must, therefore, turn to
other factors, all of them earthbound, that might affect the global
heat budget.
Reflectivity of Earths surface. Landmasses retain far less heat
than water. Seawater in particular plays a key role in regulating the
global thermometer. Oceans not only absorb heat, but they also
distribute it widely across the planet through ocean currents. What
we can deduce from this is that the planet will be warmer when the
ratio of ocean to land surface is greater, and cooler when the reverse
is true.
Reflectivity of Earth Surfaces Affecting
the Global Heat Budget
Reflectivity (Percentage
Surface Type
of Solar Radiation Reflected)
Water
28%
Dark-colored rocks and forests
510%
Light-colored rocks and barren ground
1520%
Grasslands
1535%
Atmosphere (clouds and dust)
4080%
Snow and ice
4585%
Proximity of the poles to oceans and landmasses. Earths poles have

not always been landlocked or nearly landlocked as they are today.
Oceans of the polar regions absorb heat from the Sun more quickly
than polar landmasses and ice caps. That is because the snowy sur-
face of the frozen earth reflects most of the sunlight that falls upon
it. A polar region can be significantly warmer if it consists of more
ocean than land. The temperature of the polar regions in turn affects
the circulation of atmospheric temperature across the planet. Colder
poles can cause a drop in average global temperature.
Ability of solar radiation to penetrate the atmosphere. Clouds and
debris such as smoke, dust, and airborne chemicals are effective
deflectors of solar radiation. The global heat budget can be greatly
affected by temporary increases in atmospheric debris. It is esti-
mated that an increase in atmospheric smoke and dirt of only seven
percent for one year could drop the average global temperature by
2F (1C). In one modern example, the 1991 eruption of Mount Pina-
tubo in the Philippines discharged an enormous amount of ash and
sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere. When sulfur dioxide is com-

bined with water vapor in clouds, it creates a radiation-absorbing
shield of sulfuric acid vapor. Using evidence collected by satellite,
NASA scientists confirmed that the eruption of Mount Pinatubo
caused a drop in average global temperature of 1F (0.5C). This
suggests that times of massive volcanic activity such as occurred
during part of the Paleozoic Era may have contributed to lowering
global temperatures enough to encourage glaciation.
Ability of the atmosphere to trap reflected radiation. If all of the
Suns radiation reflected from Earths surface bounced back through
the atmosphere into space, the planet would be a cold, uninhabit-
able place. Some of this reflected radiation is prevented from escap-
ing by water vapor in clouds, ozone in the lower atmosphere, and
atmospheric methane and carbon dioxide (CO2) gas. The trapping
of this radiation is called the greenhouse effect. When the amounts
of these atmospheric chemicals are increased, more heat is trapped,
and the planet grows warmer. This may be happening now, in the
twenty-first century, as a result of humans burning fossil fuels such
as wood, coal, and petroleum. A byproduct of fossil fuel consump-
tion is the release of carbon dioxide into the air. In Earths past, the
opposite effect occurred during times when atmospheric carbon
dioxide was absorbed by carbon-rich sediments such as limestone
and coal deposits. Chemical studies of glacial ice cores have con-
firmed that atmospheric carbon dioxide was much lower during
past glacial episodes. This suggests that a lowering of CO2 in the
atmosphere may have preceded periods of glaciation.
Of the above factors, the configuration of Earths land and water
surface areas appears to carry the greatest weight in regulating
average global temperature. The other factors, although impor-
tant components of the global heat budget, do not appear to exert
extraordinary influence by themselves. If this were not the case, we
might expect to see wider fluctuations in the global temperatures
of the past. On the contrary, the geologic past shows that Earth has
maintained a stable thermal balance that has varied only within a
narrow range. Even a renewal of continental glaciation requires a
drop in mean annual temperature of only 5 to 9F (3 to 5C) to get

the cycle started. Most of the planets geologic history has supported
a remarkably stable thermal equilibrium.
Average Global Temperatures of the Paleozoic

With the exception of two periods of glacial cooling, the Paleozoic
was a uniformly warm era. For 75 percent of the Paleozoic, average
global temperatures ranged between 63 and 72F (17 and 22C),
with a climate across the world that was much like the climate that
exists today along the equator. Even the coolest of Paleozoic times,
equal to 25 percent of the entire era, were not extraordinarily cold;
those times had an average temperature that ranged between 54
and 63F (12 and 17C)a temperate climate by todays standards.
Todays Earth is experiencing a cool period in its geologic history,
with an average global temperature that hovers around 54F (12C).
According to geologists, modern-day Earth currently is experienc-
ing an interglacial period of receding ice sheets that began about
10,000 years ago. The rate of global warming due to human activity
on the planet is causing a faster-than-normal rise in average global
temperature.
From the Early Cambrian Epoch to the Early Ordovician Epoch,
Earth had a mild climate. Warm, tropical oceans and seaways flowed
between the southern continent of Gondwana and the fragmented
landmasses of the Northern Hemisphere. During the Middle and
Late Ordovician Epochs, the world cooled down for a short span;
glaciers and an ice cap formed on Gondwana and at the South Pole.
During the Silurian Epoch and Early Devonian Epoch, the north-
ern continents became partly arid and desertlike, while cool oceans
covered what is today Africa and South America in the Southern
Hemisphere.
During the Late Devonian and Early Carboniferous Epochs, the
continents of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres slowly began
to collide in the early stages of the formation of the supercontinent
Pangaea, and distinctive climate zones began to form. The North-
ern Hemisphere was warm and tropical, with a proliferation of
rain-forest flora and fauna. The

South Pole cooled again, glaciers
formed, and the area had an ice
cap by the Late Carboniferous
Epoch. The Early Permian wit-
nessed another period of glaciation,
although shorter than that of the
Late Ordovician.
The end of the Paleozoic Era wit-
nessed a transformative reversal of
climate conditions, as glaciers dis-
appeared from the Southern Hemi-
sphere, and an ice cap formed on
the North Pole. Pangaea was now a
substantial landmass that included
The great ocean called Panthalassa
surrounded the supercontinent of Pangaea.
most of Earths terrestrial environ-
ments. Central Pangaea became arid
across most of the equator. Only two
substantial tropical zones remained, near the equator in what today
is southern China, northern Africa, and northern South America. A
single great ocean called Panthalassa surrounded the supercontinent
Pangaea. The world had six distinctive climate zones: glacial, temper-
ate, semiarid, arid, equatorial-tropical, and equatorial-mountainous.
Oxygen and Carbon Dioxide Levels

Life on land and in water requires carbon dioxide (CO2) and oxy-
gen (O2). Plants need carbon dioxide for photosynthesis. Carbon
dioxide comes from animals when they exhale and from decaying
organic matter and is absorbed by water in the atmosphere. This
exchange between living organisms and the environment is a criti-
cal factor that affects the development of all life. Nearly all types of
organisms use oxygen to obtain energy from organic compounds.
Oxygen is an essential fuel for body tissues.
Before the evolution of the first single-celled organisms, Earths
atmosphere contained no free oxygen; it consisted primarily of
carbon dioxide and nitrogen gas. About 3.5 billion years ago, singlecelled cyanobacteria found a niche for themselves by using energy
from the Sun, carbon dioxide, and water to reproduce their cells.
The waste product of this process was free oxygen; that oxygen was
released into the sea and atmosphere, making cyanobacteria the
first photosynthetic creatures.
The process of photosynthesis, used by plants, is the major
source of atmospheric oxygen. Photosynthesis is also the basis for
the essential exchange of chemicals that takes place between plants
and animals. Plants consume carbon dioxide and release oxygen;
animal respiration consumes oxygen and releases carbon dioxide.
The oceans are part of a complex exchange of life-supporting ele-
ments. Under normal conditions, oxygen and carbon dioxide from
marine plants, animals, and the atmosphere dissolve in seawater in
a proportion equal to that found in the atmosphere. Seawater has the
ability to absorb carbon dioxide, making the ocean a vast reservoir
of this vital molecule. If seawater becomes depleted of an important
element, it draws more of that element from the solid earth or from
sediments where chemicals are stored naturally. Carbon dioxide,
in turn, helps regulate the pH range of seawater: The CO2 acts as
a check to keep the ocean from becoming too alkaline or too acid,
thus maintaining the chemical components of seawater at an opti-
mum level to support life in the ocean. Through these processes, the
chemical balance between the oceans and the atmosphere remains
in equilibrium.
Oxygen can be added to the ocean only through absorption at
the surface or as a byproduct of photosynthesizing marine plants.
Concentrations of oxygen adequate to support ocean life can reach
depths of 2,600 feet (800 meters) or more through the circulation of
ocean currents, although mostly enriching shallower ocean depths.
In the early history of the Earth, the availability of oxygen meant
that life, as we understand it, could exist. The explosion of life in
the sea and the rise of marine and land vertebrates were synchro-
nous with the increasing abundance of oxygen in the Precambrian
and Paleozoic Eras. The first photosynthesizing creatures were the
These graphs show changes to climate, atmosphere, and sea level during the Paleozoic
Era. Extreme rises and falls correspond with mass extinction events.
cyanobacteria, which originated about 3.5 billion years ago. By

the Early Paleozoic Era, the oxygenation of the oceans led to the
rapid development of multicelled organisms. By the middle of the
ContinentsandClimatesofthePaleozoicera 31
THINK ABOUT IT
ChangingPaleozoicecosystemsand
theDiversificationofOrganisms
The combined effects of changes in geology and changes in climate have
a ripple effect on Earths marine habitats. During the Early Cambrian
Epoch, rising seas spread out to form immense expanses of shallow
water across the surface of the continents. With rising oxygen levels,
invertebrate life in the oceans grew and diversified rapidly. During the Late
Cambrian and Early Ordovician Epochs, sea levels retreated and then rose
again; temperatures cooled; and marine habitats became increasingly
tiered. There were more and varied places for sea life to live.
The shelled, bottom-dwelling, and crawling creatures that dominated
the Cambrian Period were gradually replaced during the Ordovician by a
diverse collection of swimmers, stationary filter feeders, drifters, and
burrowing creatures that occupied every level of habitat in the ocean.
These Ordovician organisms are typified by corals, swimming cephalopods, brachiopods, bryozoans, and plantlike crinoids.
During the Silurian and Devonian Periods, invertebrate life on the
seafloor diversified even further, occupying extensive reef habitats in
shallow seaways that ran along continental margins. Ammonoids and
fishes were widespread during the Devonian Period. On land, the first
vascular plants were diversifying into forests, and a wide assortment
of terrestrial arthropods became the first important animals to invade
the land.
During the Carboniferous Period, great tropical forests spread across
a wide equatorial band around Earth, and vertebrates began to inhabit
the land. In the oceans, ammonoids, mollusks, crinoids, bryozoans, corals,
and fishes were abundant.
By the end of the Paleozoic Era, cyclic drops in sea level and fluctuating temperatures on land and sea were capped by a catastrophic period
of volcanic eruptions and runaway greenhouse warming that led to the
worst mass extinction event in history.
Paleozoic Era, oxygen levels in the atmosphere rose accordingly, fed

by an increasing abundance of plants on both land and sea. During
the Carboniferous Period, an enormous greening of the land took
place, as vast tropical rain forests spread throughout the hot zones of
Earths equatorial regions. These same regions, now located in North
America, Europe, and Asia, still contain the vast coal reservesthe
fossilized remains of plants and animals from the Paleozoic Era
that helped fuel humankinds first great industrial revolution.
Oxygen currently makes up about 21 percent of Earths atmo-
sphere. During the Late Carboniferous Epoch, atmospheric oxygen
levels peaked at an astounding 35 percenta phenomenon that
resulted in some unusual animal evolution, including gigantism
in insects and other arthropods. The combined effects of rising
oxygen levels, warming global temperatures, continental drift, and
changes in sea level made the Paleozoic Era a time of explosive geo-
logic and biological evolution.
LIFE DIVERSIFIES
The changes of Earths geology, oceans, and climate during the 291
million years of the Paleozoic Era made possible a growing diversity
of organisms on land and sea. Substantial movements of the conti-
nents formed entirely new ecological niches. The first explosion of
life in the Cambrian seas was followed during the rest of the Paleo-
zoic Era by an ever-widening variety of shelled marine creatures.
The first fish evolved during the Cambrian Period and diversified
during the Middle Paleozoic Epoch. An increasingly inviting ter-
restrial environment first drew bacteria and then plants to the land,
followed soon by arthropods and amphibians. The greening of the
continents with vast tropical forests forever changed the ecology of
Earth as the processes of weathering, erosion, and sedimentation
began to transform what was once a barren planet into an inviting
world for many kinds of organisms.
While the Paleozoic Era is known for the development of new
habitats and an explosion of species, it is also notorious for having
hosted some of the worst mass extinction events of all time. This era
Evolution of major marine and terrestrial organisms during the Paleozoic Era
serves as a reminder that nothing in geologic history is guaranteed,

even the survival of a successful species.
SUMMARY
This chapter explored the geological and climatic changes that af-
fected the evolution of life in the Paleozoic Era.

1. The Paleozoic Era stretched back from 251 million to 542
million years ago and marked the rise of plant and animal
species that eventually led to the kinds of life we see today.
2. During the first half of the Paleozoic Era, which included the
Cambrian, Ordovician, and Silurian Periods, the Earth was
a world that consisted of the large southern landmass Gond-
wana and warm oceans in the Northern Hemisphere.
3.During the second half of the Paleozoic Era, which included
the Devonian, Carboniferous, and Permian Periods, all of

Earths major landmasses slowly collided to form the super-
continent Pangaea.
4.Pangaea was surrounded by a single great ocean called
Panthalassa.
5.Average global temperature is regulated by several interre-
lated factors, including the output of the Sun, the reflective
nature of Earth, the proximity of the poles to landmasses or
ocean, and the ability of solar radiation to penetrate Earths
atmosphere. The combined influence of these elements regu-
lates Earths global heat budget.
6.With the exception of two periods of glacial cooling, the
Paleozoic Era was a uniformly warm era.
7.The explosion of life in the sea and the rise of marine and
land vertebrates were synchronous with the increasing abun-
dance of oxygen in the Precambrian and Paleozoic Eras.
2
PALEOZOIC MASS EXTINCTIONS
The fossil record confirms the fact that no species lasts forever.
Every species eventually becomes extinct. Extinction is a normal
process; it is affected by the biological traits of an organism as well
as physical and biological conditions of the world around them. In
the ebb of flow of life on Earth, extinction irrevocably denies the
continuance of some species even as it creates new opportunities for
those species left behind.
Sometimes the cause of an extinction is so vast and so sudden
that hundreds, maybe thousands, of species are affected. A rapid
change of this nature that wipes out significant numbers of species
is called a mass extinction. Mass extinctions occur rapidly by geo-
logic standards, killing off more than 25 percent of all species in a
million years or less.
The subject of mass extinctions often brings to mind the demise
of the dinosaurs and visions of Earth being pummeled by a gigantic
asteroid. In the history of mass extinctions, however, the geologic
events that wiped out the last of the dinosaurs rank only fourth on
a list of the five worst mass extinctions. The top three all took place
during the Paleozoic Era, long before dinosaurs walked the planet.
CAUSES Of MASS EXTINCTIONS

Mass extinctions change the direction of nearly all life on the planet.
Even the most successful lines of organisms can perish when an
enormous natural catastrophe makes it impossible for them to
recover through the natural course of adaptation. Flora and fauna
that once dominated ecosystems can be wiped out by a mass extinc-
tion, leaving ecological niches for other organisms to spread and
35
diversify. So goes the balancing act of nature; when one group of

species is devastated, those that survive benefit and continue the
evolutionary march of life.
Mass extinctions have many causes and are often the result of
multiple, accumulating natural disasters. Even mass extinctions
take a long time to unravel Earths ecosystemsometimes as long
as a million years or more. Mass extinctions are usually caused by
widespread changes to both climate and geology. The most com-
mon culprits have been:
Shifts in Earths crust. Movement of tectonic plates can
greatly affect the habitat of species. The formation of

mountains can change climates and habitats. The joining
and separation of landmasses affects climate, ocean depth,
near-shore habitats, and the geographic range of species. The
Paleozoic Era was an exceptionally active span of tectonic
plate movements.
Severe climate changes, hot and cold. If the average
temperature of a habitat drops even by only a few degrees,
and this change is sustained for months or years, it can
severely affect the plants and animals that live in the habitat.
Climate changes are often the side effects of other kinds of
natural disasters, such as volcanic eruptions, tectonic plate
shifts, and meteor or comet strikes. Glaciation on a large
scale, such as occurred during the Paleozoic Era, can also
lead to worldwide cooling.
Massive and continuous volcanic eruptions. Volcanic action
during the Paleozoic Era was often more violent and
sustained than anything experienced today. Long periods
of volcanic eruption will kill many life-forms living nearby.
Volcanoes, however, also can affect habitats worldwide
because of the tremendous amounts of smoke and debris
they spew into the atmosphere. Airborne debris affects
climates by altering both the amount of solar radiation that
can penetrate the atmosphere and the amount that is trapped
Paleozoic Mass Extinctions 37
within the atmosphere. Volcanic gases also may poison the

atmosphere by causing acid rain to pour on both land and
sea. The Paleozoic Era was capped by one of historys longest
and most sustained periods of volcanic activity.
Changes in the chemistry of air and water. The ocean
naturally maintains its optimal chemical balance through a
complex self-regulatory system called the global chemostat.
Through this system of natural feedback processes, chemical
exchanges take place among seawater, the atmosphere,
weathering rock, and the metabolic activity of organisms.
This equilibrium has been maintained for most of geologic
time, but it can be severely tested by natural disasters that
may temporarily alter the chemical makeup of the ocean,
thereby causing widespread killings of ocean plants and
animals. Volcanic eruptions and even asteroid strikes can
pulverize minerals in Earths crust, and these materials can
make their way into the oceans. Changes in the acidity or
alkalinity of seawater and the presence in the water of toxic
substances all can have disastrous effects on sea life, killing
off many corals, algae, microorganisms, and plankton. In
turn, the destruction of these life-forms eventually devastates
communities of animals that depend on those organisms for
food and oxygen.
Asteroid or comet strikes. There is a growing body of
evidence that Earth has been struck by large asteroids or
comets on several occasions, the most famous being the
collision that ended the age of the dinosaurs 65 million years
ago. A strike of this magnitude would have the explosive
power of hundreds of nuclear warheads. Earths crust would
be vaporized at the point of impact. Towering tsunamis,
perhaps a mile (1.6 km) or more high, would engulf
continental coasts if the event happened to be in mid-ocean.
Debris would be launched into the atmosphere, clouding
the Sun and possibly polluting the air with toxic gases. This
might be followed by globally devastating forest fires that
would release thick smoke into the atmosphere. The longterm effects would include such climate changes as a shift
in the average global temperature for many hundreds of
years. Although asteroid or comet strikes are not currently
considered the leading causes of mass extinctions during
the Paleozoic Era, they have been implicated in some mass
extinctions as a contributing factor, as explained below.
MASS EXTINCTIONS OF THE PALEOZOIC ERA

There were four significant mass extinctions during the Paleozoic
Era, three of which rank as the worst in all of geologic history. The
Paleozoic Era was a time of great upheaval on Earth. Continents
separated and then converged again to form one giant landmass.
Seas reached the highest levels seen in the geologic record but also
fell back to lows that have rarely occurred again. Even oxygen levels
swung from dizzying lows to enormously rich highs, affecting the
development of life on land and in the sea. When combined with
persistent periods of volcanic eruption, glaciation, and climate shift,
it is no wonder that plant and animal life was severely challenged
during this era.
End-Cambrian Extinction
The first great extinction of the Paleozoic Era came in the oceans,
before the rise of vertebrates and the colonization of the land. The
Cambrian was the time of the trilobites, bottom-feeding arthro-
pods with a segmented exoskeleton. A trilobite could roll up like a
pill bug to defend against attacks by swimming predators such as
nautiloids. Trilobites varied widely in size, from a few millimeters
to three feet (90 cm) long. They and other creatures represented
in the Burgess Shalea significant deposit of Cambrian fossils in
British Columbia, Canadalived in shallow ocean environments
and on reefs. Trilobites evolved during the Early Cambrian Epoch
along with early crabs, marine worms, sea pens, and various other
mysterious shelled creatures that remain unclassifiable using todays
extant (existing) phyla. Trilobites were particularly robust, and they
A trilobite fossil
grew in diversity and oceanic range until well into the Permian
Period.
The end of the Cambrian Period saw violent shifts in Earths
tectonic plates and widespread volcanic eruptions. These geologic
effects caused several drops in the level of the sea. Over many hun-
dreds of years, this transformed the shallow-water habitats occupied
by some of the most plentiful and wondrous Cambrian creatures.
Some near-shore environments dried under the Sun as ocean waters
retreated time and time again. While many phyla of animals adapted
successfully to the changing conditions, nearly half (42 percent)
could not and became extinct. Among those that became extinct
were the oldest species of trilobites, some brachiopods, early reefbuilding organisms, and some species of early eel-like vertebrates
known as conodonts. The end-Cambrian mass extinction brought
the end of a way of life that had reigned supreme in the oceans for
many millions of years. Although the trilobites continued to pros-
per in various forms, their reign as one of the most successful ocean
creatures was gradually diminished by the development of other
more mobile and diverse life-forms.
Ordovician-Silurian Extinction
With the coming of the Ordovician Period, the oceans ecosystems
were vastly reshaped from what they had been during the Cambrian
Period. By the start of the Ordovician Period, sea levels were sub-
stantially higher over those of the Early Cambrian. The oceans were
still warm, but they were deeper and more varied in the kinds of
habitats available than they had been during the Cambrian Period.
In addition to near-shore environments, oceans developed tiers
of habitable domains at various depths, thereby encouraging the
evolution of a diverse community of new creatures. Among these
were corals; cephalopods (mollusks, including the first species of
nautiluses); the stalked, bottom-feeding crinoids; the mosslike and
branchlike colonial-living bryozoans; gastropods (single-shelled
creatures such as snails); and bivalves (two-shelled creatures such
as clams). The Ordovician was also a time of gradually increasing
diversity of the first vertebrates, including conodonts and the first
fishes, known as jawless fishes.
The appearance of nautiloids and jawless fishes marked an esca-
lating race of predatory, free-swimming creatures. The nautiloids,
especially the coiled species, were active hunters. They fed on trilo-
bites, further decimating the lines of surviving trilobites with roots
in the Cambrian era.
The end of the Ordovician Period witnessed the second most
devastating mass extinction on record, second only to the extinc-
tion that ended the Paleozoic Era. The cause of the OrdovicianSilurian extinction event was probably global cooling, most likely
precipitated by major glaciation on the southern part of the Gond-
wana supercontinent. This cooled the shallowest parts of the sea,
killing off many species in tropical ocean regions. One-third of
the bryozoans and brachiopods were killed off. Conodonts and
trilobites took additional hits. Crinoids and other reef community
invertebrates were greatly reduced, and many families of nautiloids
disappeared. Across the planet, more than 100 families of marine
invertebratesabout 85 percent of all marine animal species
perished at that time. Supporting the theory that the OrdovicianSilurian extinction was caused by global cooling is the fact that the
survivors of this devastation were either from deeper, colder waters,
or from colder climates where the species had already become well
adapted to cooler temperatures.
Late Devonian Extinction

Following the extensive extinction at the end of the Ordovician,
moving continents once again played a role in determining the
direction that life was about to take. The proximity of the poles
to landmasses or ocean can result in climate changes. If the poles
are located in open ocean, they will be warmer than if they are
located on landmasses. During the early stages of the Silurian
Period, the supercontinent Gondwana drifted away from the South
Pole, leading to warmer oceans worldwide. During this time, life
rebounded; this rebound led to the proliferation of jawless fishes
and cephalopod relatives of the nautiloids known as ammonites
or ammonoids. The first jawed fishes also appeared but were not
yet as dominant as predators as they would become later. Ammo-
noids were likely the most important ocean predators of the time,
c ruising the open tropical oceans in large groups and grabbing

prey with their tentacles.
The Silurian Period remained warm and hospitable to tropical
life, but by the Early to Middle Devonian Epoch, the continent of
Gondwana had slipped back over the South Pole, causing another
intense period of glaciation in the Southern Hemisphere. As in the
Ordovician-Silurian extinction, the effect of the cooling was again
severe for many invertebrates. The circulation of cold waters across
the oceans also may have dredged up nonoxygenated waters to the
surface. This mass extinction took its toll during a five-million-year
span of the Late Devonian Epoch, eventually killing off many ocean
species in tropical waters. As many as 70 percent of the worlds
marine invertebrates were wiped out. Among them were many spe-
cies of brachiopods, ammonoids, trilobites, and reef community
fauna. Among vertebrates, many of the developing species of Devo-
nian fish were decimated, particularly the armored jawless fishes
but also some of the placoderms, the first jawed fishes.
By the end of the Devonian, the oceans were receding, as north-
ern landmasses moved closer together. With the retreat of glaciers
in Gondwana, the oceans once again warmed up, setting the stage
for the colonization of land by plant and animal life.
Permian-Triassic Extinction
The worst mass extinction of all time occurred 251 million years
ago, at the end of the Permian Period. Fossil evidence shows that life
on Earth nearly came to an abrupt halt at that time. As many as 95
percent of all ocean species were erased. Gone from the seas were
most crinoids, brachiopods, reef-building bryozoans, nautiloids,
and ammonoids. Nearly every marine invertebrate group suffered
huge losses; most groups never regained the diversity that they once
had. Land animals were hit nearly as hard. By the end of the Perm-
ian Period, 75 percent of all terrestrial vertebrate taxa had been
wiped out. Among them were six families of archaic vertebrates
representing early amphibians, reptiles, and synapsids, including
several families of formidable saurian predators.
Despite the obvious severity of this mass extinction, its cause

and effects have been a matter of debate for as long as the Permian
Period has been recognized as a distinct geologic stratum, or layer
within geologic fossil history. The geologist responsible for naming
the Permian stratum was Scotsman Roderick Impey Murchison
(17921871). Murchison, a wealthy man and a former soldier, took
up geologic exploration at the urging of his friend, paleontologist
William Buckland (17841856). Buckland was the scientist respon-
sible for writing the first scientific description of a dinosaur. Early in
his geologic career, Murchison made extensive surveys of strata in
Scotland and Europe and contributed one of the first notable studies
of fossil fish. His enthusiastic work brought him to the attention of
other well-known naturalists of the time, including Adam Sedgwick
(17851873), professor of geology at Cambridge University. Work-
ing with Sedgwick, the two named the Devonian geologic stratum
in 1839. That stratum is also known as the Old Red Sandstone, a
thick, reddish stratigraphic zone rich with marine fossils. The Old
Red Sandstone can be traced through regions of Wales, Scotland,
England, and Northern Ireland.
Murchison had a voracious appetite for exploration and kept
meticulous records about fossils that he came upon in his fieldwork.
Soon after his success in the British Isles, the Scotsman set off to
explore Russia. While studying formations in eastern Russia, Mur-
chison recognized a fossil-bearing layer with marked differences
over those previously discovered. This layer was positioned over the
deposits of the Carboniferous Period, a widely known stratigraphic
layer also found in Europe. The Russian formation contained fos-
sils distinctly different from those Murchison had seen before. In
1841, the Scotsman named this formationwhich he described as
a vast series of beds of marls, schists, limestones, sandstones, and
conglomeratesthe Permian, after the city of Perm in Russias Ural
Mountains.
What made Murchisons newly christened Permian Period a
source of controversy was that its strata contained a rich trove of fos-
sil organisms that suddenly disappeared from overlying sediments in
the wink of a moment in geologic time. Murchison interpreted this

evidence as the telltale sign of a catastrophic extinction of lifea
truly radical and unpopular suggestion in mid-nineteenth-century
Europe. Murchison made this extraordinary claim with little more
corroboration than his single stratum of previously undiscovered
sedimentary rock and a hunch. The very concept of mass extinction
was itself viewed as heretical and antireligious, an affront to Gods
ability to create and sustain life. According to paleontologist Michael
Benton (b. 1956) of the University of Bristol, Murchisons discovery
was so startling that even some of the most respected naturalists of
1841, including Charles Darwin (18091882) and Robert Lyell (1797
1875), were compelled to explain away the apparent disappearance of
Permian fossil species as a mere gap in the fossil record rather than
as a mass extinction. In time, with the discovery of similar gaps in
Permian deposits at other geologic locations, paleontologists accepted
the fact that the end of the Paleozoic Era marked a truly horrendous
loss of species, the likes of which has never evolved again.
Causes and Timing of the Permian-Triassic Extinction

Even after having established the severity of the Permian-Triassic
extinction, geologists and paleontologists have puzzled for many
years over the cause of the catastrophe. Unlike other extinction
events for which causes have been more clearly attributed, such as
the killer asteroid that ended the reign of the dinosaurs 65 million
years ago, the Permian-Triassic extinction and the events leading
up to it are more geologically complicated. Physical evidence from
the Late Paleozoic Era is clouded by a swarm of many interrelated
factors that may have affected the course of life. A bevy of potential
culprits have been identified, including continental shifts, changes
in sea level, global cooling due to glaciation, global warming,
changes in ocean chemistry, volcanic eruptions, and speculation
that at the end of the Permian Period, the planet may have been
struck by an asteroid.
The list of killer suspects seems almost endless in this case.
Consider the following mixed bag of natural disasters. Climates
changed dramatically during the Middle Permian. Warm, tropical
ocean currents that once flowed between equatorial landmasses

became restricted to the perimeter of the supercontinent as land-
masses moved together and tropical areas became landlocked. This
restricted habitats and essentially trapped indigenous species. The
lower reaches of Pangaea were positioned over the South Pole. This
caused glaciers to form as they had in the Ordovician and Devonian
Periods. Both of these cooling events coincided with the forming of
the supercontinent Pangaea, a landmass so large that it stretched
from the North Pole to the South Pole. A massive ice sheet measur-
ing 0.6 miles (1 km) thick in places appeared in Siberia, marking the
first time in Earths history that significant ice belts appeared at the
same time in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. Global
cooling probably led to sea level drops, to extended droughts that
formed desert zones on Pangaea, and to a global shift to distinct cli-
mate zones to which some species could not adequately adapt. This
entire sequence was brought to an end with an extended period of
volcanic activity in the Northern Hemisphere.
The length of the Permian mass extinction was also a matter
of debate for many years. Some scientists believed that the extinc-
tion took place gradually, over many millions of years, and that it
probably was spurred by an escalating sequence of different but
interconnected causes. One scenario suggested that there were two
extinction events: a smaller one that followed Middle Permian gla-
ciation and climate shifts, and a larger one at the end of the Permian
that was triggered by a worldwide geologic cataclysm of some type.
This uncertainty has led to arguments about the timing of the end
of the extinction, with estimates ranging from 225 million to 250
million years agoa range of 25 million years.
The major challenges for scientists trying to resolve the issues
related to the causes and timing of the Permian-Triassic extinction
were, first, to establish the reasons for the extinction and, second, to
quantify the rate at which so many species perished.
How Most Life Can Perish

The unraveling of the Permian-Triassic extinction mystery did not
come all of a sudden, with a single, startling new discovery. The
cause became evident step by step, through research conducted by a

number of scientific teams working on several fronts.
Several well-studied stratigraphic layers around the world docu-
ment the fossil record of the Late Permian Epoch. These include
sites in Antarctica, Austria, southern China, Greenland, Iran, Italy,
Japan, Pakistan, and South Africa. Of these sites, a fossil locality
in southern Chinaa site known as the Meishan section after a
nearby townhas become a key to unraveling some of the biggest
questions about the Permian-Triassic catastrophe. This site was first
studied by Chinese scientists in the 1970s and 1980s. It became
evident to those working there that the Meishan formation was
startlingly complete for a stratigraphic layer. During the past twenty
years, research spearheaded by Jin Yugan (b. 1937) of the Nanjing
Institute of Geology and Paleontology has made the Meishan for-
mation the worlds best indicator of what truly happened at the end
of the Permian Period. During the 1990s, as China began to open
its doors more widely to foreign scientists, Jin and other Chinese
scientists invited several geologists and paleontologists from outside
the country to take a closer look at the Meishan. The result of this
international cooperation was that the jigsaw puzzle of the PermianTriassic extinction finally began to take shape. The overall picture
looks something like what follows.
Precise dating of the extinction. In 1998, a team consisting of
British, Chinese, and American scientists used radiometric dating
to establish an accurate timing for the Permian-Triassic extinction.
The extinction event was dated to about 251 million years ago.
Extent of the mass extinction. In 2000, Jin Yugan and his Ameri-
can colleague Douglas H. Erwin (b. 1958) of the National Museum
of Natural History of the Smithsonian Institution published the
results of a comprehensive census of species and extinctions from the
Meishan formation. This census revealed that 94 percent of marine
species found at Meishan were wiped out. The extinction began with
the elimination of 116 marine species and continued with the dis-
appearance of 45 more species in the following 500,000 years. This
marks a rapid and disastrous depletion of marine organisms.
Evidence for a cause. The stratigraphic layer that represents the

mass extinction is topped by three layers that are virtually devoid
of life. Furthermore, the composition of each layer tells a story of its
own. Immediately above the extinction layer is a thin layer of clay
containing very few fossils. The clay of this layer is infused with
iron-rich particles and tiny shards of quartz. These indicate that
the ocean was pelted with ash from a massive volcanic eruption.
The next sedimentary layer up contains a few fossils of clams, bra-
chiopods, and cephalopods. These suggest that a slow recovery was
under way. On top of that is another layer, this time of limestone.
Although fossils are still relatively sparse in this layer, the appear-
ance of new species occurs for the first time in the fossil record since
the end of the Permian-Triassic mass extinction.
The timing of this stratigraphic evidence coincides with a record
of massive volcanic activity in Russia known as the Siberian Traps.
These eruptions were extensive, lasted for nearly a million years,
and coincided with the Permian-Triassic mass extinction. The Sibe-
rian Traps were the most catastrophic episode of sustained volcanic
eruption of the past 542 million years. The lava discharge equaled
more than 360,000 cubic miles (1.5 million cubic km) and now cov-
ers an area of 130,100 square miles (337,000 square km) of Siberia.
If one could spread this amount of lava evenly over the whole Earth,
it would form a layer 10 feet (3 m) thick.
There have also been claims that the Permian-Triassic extinction
was triggered by the impact of a large asteroid with the Earththe
kind of colossal accident that would have blackened the sky, poi-
soned the oceans, and left the planet starving for sunlight for many
years. A similar scenario has been widely accepted as the final blow
in the extinction of the dinosaurs. The case for the Permian-Triassic
impact has been championed by Luann Becker (b. 1960) and col-
leagues at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a team of
NASA scientists. Beckers original claims were impressive; they were
based on chemical analysis of sediments from the same Meishan
fossil locality in China that was used to determine the timing of the
extinction. Unfortunately, attempts by other scientists to reproduce
Beckers test results have so far been unsuccessful. As of this writ-

ing, Beckers impact theory for the Permian-Triassic extinction does
not hold up to scrutiny as well as the volcanic-eruption hypothesis.
The effects of massive volcanic activity. Volcanism occurring at
the extreme levels of the Siberian Traps would have released massive
amounts of CO2 and other chemicals into the atmosphere. A thick
barrier of smoky clouds may have blocked sunlight from reaching
Earths surface and so played havoc with plant life and photosynthe-
sis on land and sea. As plants and animals died, more CO2 would
have been released. The greenhouse effect could have made the
climate and oceans warmer, perhaps by as much as 11F (6C)
a relatively enormous shift that would have led to catastrophic
habitat changes and a disruption of the natural chemical feedback
system of the global chemostat. According to paleontologist Michael
Benton, this rise in temperature would have warmed the oceans
enough to cause them to release a vast store of methane that had
been safely stored away in the cold deep at the bottom of the sea.
Normally, when methane surges, it uses oxygen in the water or air
to form carbon dioxide. But what happens when there is more meth-
ane than even the vast stores of oceanic oxygen can counteract? The
Permian methane burp, as Benton calls it, would have been so
large as to overwhelm Earths normal feedback systems, releasing
vast stores of carbon dioxide into the air.
Worldwide oxygen levels would have plummeted, the oceans
would have begun to suffer from anoxiaa lack of oxygenand
life would have begun to die. A runaway greenhouse effect would
have taken over, killing off plankton in the oceans and triggering a
life-shattering reign of death that decimated marine life. Terrestrial
animals also would be affected by a global warming. Plants would
die, as would those animals that depended on plants for food and
those animals that ate the plant eaters.
The animals that perished in the Permian oceans were largely
immobile and sedentary, unable to escape the oxygen deprivation
of their habitat. Of the 5 percent of ocean creatures that survived,
including fishes, mollusks, and arthropods, each species was more
mobile and was equipped with a more robust gill system for extract-
ing what little oxygen was left in the water.
Mass Extinctions of the Paleozoic Era
Time
Extinction (Millions of
Event
Years Ago) Extent
Cause
Most Dramatic
Casualties
End-
485
Cambrian
extinction
About 42% of
marine animal
species perished.
Tectonic plate shifts,

volcanic eruptions,
drop in sea level
Brachiopods, conodonts,
and trilobites
rdovician-
O
440
Silurian
extinction
About 85% of
marine animal
species perished.
Glaciation and lower

sea levels
Trilobites, echinoderms,
and nautiloids
ate-
L
374
About 70% of
Glaciation and
Devonian
marine animal
global cooling, partly
extinction
species perished.
resulting from tectonic

plate movements

ermian-
P
251
Triassic
extinction

About 95% of
marine animal
species and 75%
of terrestrial
animal species
perished.
Ammonoids, trilobites,
gastropods, reef
community fauna,
armored jawless fish,
and placoderms
Extensive volcanic
activity, lower sea levels,
oceanic methane belches
causing anoxia in the
oceans and massive
release of CO2
EXTINCTION AND RECOVERY:

AN ECOLOGICAL SHAKEDOWN
The Paleozoic Era was marked by four mass extinctions, two of
which were the most devastating of all time. In the worst case, 251
million years ago, all life came to within a whisper of being anni-
hilated. According to Michael Benton, the Permian-Triassic extinc-
tion was so severe that it took nearly 100 million years for global
biodiversity to return to preextinction levelsa span that is a third
as long as the entire Paleozoic Era.
But news of mass extinction was not bad for all species. The
Paleozoic mass extinctions opened up niches in the ecosystem for
95% of all ocean

species; 75% of land
vertebrates
other organisms to fill. After each natural catastrophe, surviving

families of invertebrates and vertebrates were able to move into
newly forming or vacated domains. By the Middle Paleozoic, the
vertebrates in particular became increasingly diverse and abun-
dant; they supplanted invertebrates that had once ruled the worlds
habitats.
SUMMARY
This chapter reviewed mass extinctions of the Paleozoic Era, their
causes, and their effect on the direction of life.

1. Mass extinctions occur rapidly by geologic standards; they
kill off more than 25 percent of all species in a million years

or less.
2. Mass extinctions are usually caused by widespread changes to
both climate and geology.
3. Common causes behind mass extinctions include shifts in the
Earths crust, severe climate swings, massive and continuous
volcanic eruptions, changes to the chemistry of air or water,
and strikes by asteroids or comets.
4. There were four significant mass extinctions during the
Paleozoic Era; two of them rank as the worst extinctions in
all of geologic history.
5. The mass extinctions of the Paleozoic Era were the endCambrian extinction, the Ordovician-Silurian extinction,
the Late Devonian extinction, and the Permian-Triassic
extinction.
6. The worst mass extinction of all time was the PermianTriassic extinction, which occurred 251 million years ago. It
wiped out 95 percent of marine species and 75 percent of land
vertebrate taxa.
7. The Permian-Triassic extinction occurred rapidly, during a
span of 500,000 years.
8. The Permian-Triassic extinction was triggered by massive
prolonged volcanic activity in Siberia, a runaway greenhouse
effect, and the plummeting of worldwide oxygen levels due to

disruption of Earths natural chemostat.
9. Recovery of species from the Permian-Triassic extinction was
slow; it required about 100 million years for global biodiver-
sity to return to preextinction levels.
10. Mass extinctions open up niches in the ecosystem for other
organisms to fill.
Page 52
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seCtiONONe:
seCtiONtWO:
HHE
T
OWFLIRST
IFE D
VEVELOPS
ERTEBRATES
AND ITS CLASSIFICATION
10
3
VERTEBRATE
GEOLOGIC TTIME
RAITS
Every individual fossil is a rare and revealing artifact. It reveals
secrets about the form, structure, and perhaps even the lifestyle of a
long extinct organism. That, however, is not the whole story. An indi-
vidual fossil is also part of a long history of evolutionary life. A fossil is
like a single domino in a long series of dominoes. Each one is affected
by the one that came just before it. Our knowledge of past life greatly
expands when we can connect individual fossils with other, similar
kinds of fossils and the habitats in which they once lived.
The work of a paleontologist does not take place entirely in the
field, with rock hammer in hand. Although many thousands of
scientists have collected vast numbers of fossils from sites all across
Earth, the job of studying and comparing these artifacts and pull-
ing together the information they impart is even more daunting
than the initial collection. Without such analysis, individual fossils
remain as single, isolated dominoes, detached from the mainstream
of lifes evolutionary story.
Paleontologist J. John Sepkoski Jr. (19481999) was a leading
figure in the field of paleobiology during the past 30 years. He had
a passion for data analysis. Sepkoski attacked the fossil record not
with a pick and shovel, but with a computer and a genius for recog-
nizing patterns among vast stores of information about fossil speci-
mens. By assimilating data from many fossil discoveries, he was
able to fill gaps in the rich history of life and shape an increasingly
cohesive picture of the evolution of organisms.
Sepkoski conducted exhaustive and comprehensive studies of
the fossil record. He pioneered the use of statistical analysis and
computer modeling to extrapolate data about the diversification of
54
vertebratetraits 55
life over the millennia. In the early 1980s, he began to release find-
ings that documented the ups and downs of life on Earth over 600
million years. Sepkoskis data were applied, by himself and others,
to a wide range of paleontological disciplines, including evolution-
ary theory, studies of paleohabitats, animal diversification, and
mass extinctions. So influential was Sepkoskis work that during the
1980s and 1990s, many of his colleagues regularly included his data
and figures in their own studies.
Some of Sepkoskis greatest work was focused on the animal life
of the Paleozoic. Through his data, he originated the idea that the
planet has been dominated by three important and distinct faunas,
which he called the Cambrian, the Paleozoic, and the Modern.
The Cambrian fauna lived at the beginning of the Paleozoic Era
and included the archaic invertebrates that formed the roots of most
subsequent animal species. Typical Cambrian fauna included trilo-
bites, early mollusks, and other arthropods.
The Paleozoic fauna took over in the Ordovician Period, after
the extinction of many Cambrian species. The Paleozoic fauna were
marked by the adaptive radiation and diversification of many suc-
cessful and enduring marine invertebrates. Moving into a broader
range of ocean habitats, the Paleozoic fauna were at home in coastal
shallows as well as in tiered and open ocean environments. Bottom-
feeding brachiopods, crinoids, and bryozoans were complemented
by predatory nautiloids and other early cephalopods that swam
freely. Many species of Paleozoic fauna came and went, but together
they dominated the marine fauna of the planet until the great
Permian-Triassic extinction.
The Paleozoic fauna were followed, in the Mesozoic and Ceno-
zoic Eras, by what Sepkoski called the Modern faunathe kinds
of animals that still exist in the oceans and on land. Among the
Modern fauna are the vertebrates. Although the vertebrates did
not begin to dominate life on Earth until the early Mesozoic Era,
their roots are found in the Paleozoic. This chapter introduces the
anatomy of the vertebrates, their origins, and their first successful
adaptive radiation in the sea as fishes.
THE CHORDATES
Vertebrates are members of the phylum Chordata, a group of organ-
isms with roots in the Early Cambrian Epoch. At some time in their
life, all chordates have an internal, rodlike supporting structure
known as a notochord, a nerve cord running on top of the noto-
chord, and gill slits or lungs for breathing.
Phylum Chordata is made up of three subphyla: the Urochor-
data, Cephalochordata, and Vertebrata. Both the Urochordata and
Cephalochordata are chordates that lack skulls.
Typical living urochordates include sea squirts, tunicates, and
ascidians, all of which have larvae that are free-swimming and
adults that are benthicseafloor dwelling and stationary. The
adults measure from .04 to 4.9 inches (1 to 120 mm) long; they have
a bulbous, plantlike appearance and lack most affinities with the
other chordates. These baglike animals use muscles to contract and
expand their bodies; they suck in seawater to trap nutrients in the
form of phytoplankton. As unchordatelike as adult urochordates
seem, their larval, tadpolelike young have typical chordate features,
including a notochord, a dorsal hollow nerve cord, and gill slits. All
urochordates are marine creatures; they make up 90 percent of the
chordates without backbones. There are about 1,250 living varieties
of urochordates.
The cephalochordates measure from 2 to 6 inches (5 to 15 cm) in
length. They are small filter feeders and live on sandy, shallow sea-
floors. The three defining traits of chordatesa stiff notochord, a
dorsal nerve cord, and gills slitsare retained by cephalochordates
even in adulthood. One familiar group of cephalochordates are the
lancelets. They feed by darting into the sand and burying their bod-
ies with only the head end exposed. Tiny tentacles on the head grab
nutrient particles from seawater. Only 23 species of living cepha-
lochordates are known, making them the least populous members
of phylum Chordata. Although cephalochordates lack a backbone,
comparison of their gene sequences to that of vertebrates confirms
Vertebrate Traits 57
A sea squirt
A branchiostoma
that lancelets and their kind are the closest invertebrate relatives to
animals with backbones.
Vertebrates make up the largest subphylum of chordates. There
are more than 48,000 living species of snakes, fish, monkeys, rodents,
and other familiar backboned animals, compared to only about
1,275 living species of invertebrate chordates. Even so, vertebrates are
vastly outnumbered by other invertebrate creatures in the world and
make up only about 5 percent of all known living species of animals
on land and sea. Despite being outnumbered, the relatively large size,
mobility, and intelligence of vertebrates allows them to dominate
any ecological niche in which they naturally occur. So, even though
invertebrate fossils are readily more obtainable and outnumber
vertebrate fossils by a large percentage, many paleontologists are
irresistibly drawn to ponder the history of vertebrates because these
organisms represent the roots of humans and the other backboned
creatures with which we most commonly interact in the world.
ANATOMY OF THE VERTEBRATES

Vertebrates include fishes, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds.
As a group of related organisms, vertebrates share several anatomical
If an object with bilateral symmetry were divided in half or into equal

sections, each half or section would be identical to the other half or sections.
features, although the specific nature of these characteristics will vary

widely from taxon to taxon. These anatomical features include:
Bilateral symmetry. A fundamental feature of vertebrates
is a body plan that is bilaterally symmetrical: One side of

the body is a mirror image of the other. Some invertebrates
share this same kind of symmetry in their body plan, most
notably annelid worms and arthropods, including insects,
crabs, spiders, and others. In vertebrates, bilateral symmetry
results in pairs of features such as two eyes, two ears, and
two pairs of limbs.
Backbone. In vertebrates, the notochord takes the form of a
series of bony vertebrae that run lengthwise down the midline
of the back of the body, forming the vertebral, or spinal,
column, which is also known as the backbone or spine.
Internal skeleton. Along with the spinal column, vertebrates
have an internal, axially oriented skeleton that is made of
either bone or cartilage. In most vertebrates, the skeleton is
made of bone. An axial skeleton is one in which the body

develops lengthwise along an axis. In vertebrates, the spinal
column forms the axis, with a skull at the anterior, or head,
end and usually with ribs attached to the vertebrae to form
the outline of the body cavity, or trunk. An internal skeleton
is also known as an endoskeleton.
Appendicular skeleton. In addition to the axial skeleton, most
vertebrates have paired legs or fins for locomotion. These
appendicular limb elements are attached to the body by
bony girdles and muscles.
Skull. Sense organs and the brain form the nerve center of a
vertebrate; they are usually housed in a protective skull at the
anterior end of the body.
Segmented muscles. The muscles of the vertebrate trunk are
segmented and fibrous; they provide a wide range of flex and
locomotion.
Pharynx. In most vertebrates, the pharynx is an
inconspicuous connection between the mouth and the
esophagus or throata mere passage through which air,
water, or food can pass. From an evolutionary standpoint,
however, the pharynx is important because it is the location
of gill pouches in early vertebratesa region that represents
the root design of respiration in all vertebrates.
Gills or lungs. Vertebrates have either gills to extract oxygen
from water or lungs to extract oxygen from air.
Spinal nerve chord and circulatory and digestive systems.
Vertebrates have the spinal cord positioned above the
notochord or spinal column. The circulatory and respiratory
systems are located on the other side of the spinal column, in
the trunk of the body.
Knowing these anatomical characteristics allows one to understand

the basic design of all vertebrates. Familiarity with the anatomy of one
kind of vertebrate provides insight into the workings of all vertebrates
because the skeletons, organs, and even the behavior of different
v ertebrate taxa are similar in many ways. From this realization comes
the principle of homology. Homologies are traits that different species
of organisms have inherited from a common ancestor. Homologies
are the basis for our knowledge of how organisms are related.
Understanding the anatomical characteristics and homologies
that unite all vertebrates provides greater insight into the nature
of extinct members of the subphylum Vertebrata. This knowledge
allows a paleontologist to surmise about the skeleton of an extinct
animal even if major portions of that skeleton are missing. Under-
standing living vertebrates provides basic information about the
physiology of extinct taxa and how they may have behaved.
Bones and Hard Tissues

One characteristic that distinguishes vertebrates from animals with-
out backbones (invertebrates) is the presence of cellular bone, a form
of bone that lives and grows as tissue. Cellular bone contains channels
for blood vessels and is made of apatite, or calcium phosphate. In con-
trast, the skeletal structures of most invertebrates are made mostly of
calcium compounds and appear visibly different when viewed under
a microscope. Cellular bone is not found in any invertebrate. Cellular
bone is associated with the vertebrate endoskeleton and may be found
in any skeletal part of the body, not only the spinal column.
As states above, one of the ingredients of vertebrate bones is the
mineral apatite, or calcium phosphate. Apatite is one of the building
blocks of cellular bone and is also found in teeth, in the form of den-
tine and enamel. The dermal armor or scales of some vertebrates
are sometimes made of the same material as teeth. The armor plat-
ing of early vertebrates had more in common with teeth than with
the cellular bone that would evolve later.
CLUES TO THE FIRST VERTEBRATES

Paleontologists in search of the earliest vertebrates look for many
of the anatomical features associated with backboned animals.
THINK ABOUT IT
WhichendisUp?LabelingDirectionsWithin
thevertebratebodyPlan
The bilaterally symmetrical body plan of vertebrates provides paleontologists and zoologists with an opportunity to share common terms and
effectively communicate with one another as they describe the anatomy
direction and overall structure of such animals. These terms allow precision in the description of the location of an organ, a bone, or even just a
part of an organ or bone.
In most animals, the head and tail ends also indicate the direction in
which the animal moves. The terms anterior (or cranial) and posterior (or
caudal) are normally used to describe the head and tail ends respectively.
The upper and lower surfaces of an animalthe back and bellyare
described as the dorsal (back) and ventral (underside) surfaces. The
terms cranial and caudal are also used to indicate the proximity of a part
to either the head or tail, as in a caudal vertebra, which would be located
in the tail region of the spine.
Humans, by standing upright, require a slightly modified version of
these terms because humans cranial endthe headis not the end that
represents the direction in which humans move. Instead, the term superior (or cranial) has been adapted to describe the upright head end of a
human and the term inferior (or caudal) is used to describe the lower, or
foot end. In humans, the terms anterior and ventral are synonymous, as
are the terms posterior and dorsal.
Two additional, though less precise, directional terms are used to better describe the positional relationship that a given part of the anatomy
has to the whole body. The term proximal describes a part that is closer
to the center of the body of the animal; the term distal describes a part
that is positioned toward the outside of the body. A bone in the leg, for
example, has a proximal end and a distal end. These terms are widely
vertebratetraits 63
Positional terms used to describe vertebrate anatomy
used by paleontologists, as they try to piece together the picture of an

entire creature, to describe the positions of the bones and bone fragments that they have found.

The presence of a skull and bony skeleton in a fossil are obvious
giveaways, but fossils of the earliest vertebrates are both notori-
ously incomplete and so basal that they do not exhibit any obvious
anatomical structures. Some specimens may consist of body impres-
sions left in the stone rather than actual fossilized hard body parts.
Such impressions can show outlines of organs and soft tissues that
perhaps reveal signs of vertebrate affinities such as gills, eyes, and
other soft parts.
One of the most reliable indicators of a vertebrate animal is the
presence of apatite in its hard body parts. Given that some of the
earliest fossil evidence of early animals consists only of scales, pos-
sible teeth, and fragmentary hard tissues, the presence of apatite in
these fossils becomes a kind of litmus test for separating early verte-
brates from invertebrates. The evolution of the vertebrates began in
the oceans of the Early Cambrian Epoch.
SUMMARY
This chapter introduced the anatomy of the vertebrates, their origins,
and their first successful adaptive radiation in the sea as fishes.

1. Earth has been dominated by three important and distinct
faunas: the Cambrian marine invertebrates, the Paleozoic

marine invertebrates, and the Modern marine and terrestrial
vertebrates.
2. The Modern fauna, which appeared following the end of the
Paleozoic Era, are dominated by vertebrates with roots in the
Paleozoic.
3. Vertebrates are members of the phylum Chordata, a group of
organisms that share an internal, rodlike supporting struc-
ture known as a notochord; a nerve cord that runs on top of
the notochord; and gill slits or lungs for breathing.
4. Vertebrates are animals with backbones; they make up the
largest subphylum of chordates. There are more than 48,000
living species of backboned animals compared to only about

1,275 species of invertebrate chordates.
5. Distinguishing characteristics of vertebrates include bilat-
eral symmetry, a backbone, an internal skeleton, two pairs
of appendicular limb elements, a skull, segmented muscles,
a pharynx, gills or lungs, a spinal nerve chord, a circulatory
system, and a digestive system.
6. Homologies are traits that different species of organisms have
inherited from a common ancestor.
7. One characteristic that distinguishes vertebrates from ani-
mals without backbones is the presence of cellular bone.
4
VERTEBRATE ORIGINS
To accept J. John Sepkoskis calculations regarding the diversification of marine taxa over time is to accept that vertebrates are truly
evolutionary latecomerssophisticated creatures that crashed the
party of invertebrates that had reigned for 291 million years of the
Paleozoic. Sepkoski showed that the Paleozoic was dominated by a
great diversification of animals without backbones and that verte-
brates were waiting in the background for their opportunity to rise.
Until recently, the best fossil evidence suggested that the first ver-
tebrates appeared during the Late Cambrian and Early Ordovician
Epochs. The rise of fishes in the Late Ordovician, about 450 million
years ago, was considered the first significant radiation of animals
with backbones. Recent discoveries, however, have now pushed the
appearance of the first known vertebrates back to the Early Cam-
brian, about 525 million years ago, near the explosion of life at the
dawn of the Paleozoic. The earliest of these backboned animals was
discovered in 1999. Ironically, its remains may have been uninten-
tionally overlooked for many years by paleontologists who scoured
the same rock formations in China in search of specimens of larger,
more abundant invertebrate remains. It is now clearly evident that
ancestral fishes lived in the watery shadows of an invertebrate
world, cowering in the presence of crabs, giant sea scorpions, hun-
gry ammonoids, and a seafloor crawling with trilobites.
THE fIRST CHORdATES

For many years, the earliest known chordates were members of the
subphylum Cephalochordata that lacked backbones and were super-
ficially related to the eel-like living cephalochordates. Evidence for
66
vertebrateOrigins 67
the existence of these creatures was far less common than fossils
of invertebrates from the time, but scientists hailed specimens of
these chordates from the Early Cambrian Chengjiang formation of
southern China and the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale deposits
of western Canada as the earliest traces of animals within the same
phylum as animals with backbones. These ribbonlike creatures
swam the shallow Cambrian seas and included such species as Haik
ouella and Yunnanozoon from China and Pikaia from the Burgess
Shale of western Canada.
The remarkable preservation of these creatures in finely grained
mudstone shows soft tissues and the unmistakable traits of chordate
anatomy: an elongate body plan with an axial notochord and band-
like muscles. Conspicuously absent from these chordates was a true
backbone and any evidence of cellular bone; this suggests that their
skeletons were cartilaginous. Measuring only one to two inches (28
to 50 mm) long, these sliverlike animals were free swimmers that
wriggled along in the water powered by the bands of muscles encir-
cling their bodies. They fed by scooping food into their mouths as
they swam. In a world dominated by armor-plated arthropods and
vicious predators with a startling array of claws and jaws, the early
chordates were remarkable because of their conspicuous lack of
protection. How they managed to survive is unknown, but one can
surmise that they were able-enough swimmers to elude often the
clench of attacking predators.
Pikaia was the first of these slivery creatures to be recognized as
a chordate. This little creature was first misidentified as an extinct
segmented worm in 1911 by Charles Walcott (18501927), the dis-
coverer of the Burgess Shale fossil beds in which it was found. Addi-
tional specimens of this two-inch (51 mm) worm popped up from
the Burgess Shale over the years, sometimes revealing more detail
than that which Walcott had at his disposal. Over time, Pikaia was
provisionally thought to be an early chordate, but it was not until
1979, when thengraduate student Simon Conway Morris (b. 1951)
was given the task of classifying the Burgess Shale worms, that
Pikaias true status as a chordate was substantiated. By 1991, similar
fossil chordates were also being discovered in the Chengjiang for-

mation in China. These discoveries in China pushed the earliest
known species of chordates back to the Early Cambrian Epoch,
about 525 million years ago.
The story of Early Cambrian chordates does not end with the
ribbonlike cephalochordates. Recent discoveries have revealed that
cephalochordates were not the only members of the chordate clan
to have occupied the Early Cambrian seas. The evolutionary posi-
tion of these extinct cephalochordates that once were considered
ancestral to the vertebrates is now in question due to the discovery
of vertebrate creatures that lived among them.
VERTEBRATE BEGINNINGS
The transition to the Modern fauna of vertebrates was well under-
way during the Middle Paleozoic with the evolution of the first
marine animals with backbones. With some exceptions mentioned
in this chapter, the earliest vertebrates are known only from scant
fossil records of the Cambrian and Ordovician Periods found in
western Scotland, North America, South Africa, Australia, and
Bolivia, and consist largely of dermal armor, feeding apparatus, and
bony plates. These creatures are classified as the earliest Agnatha
(no jaw) or jawless fishes, a collection of all known early marine
vertebrates that predate the development of bony jaws. The evo-
lutionary relationships among the Agnatha are sketchy and little
known due to the scarcity of their fossils. What is plain is that fishes
without jaws developed before fishes with jaws, and paleontologists
continue to work on finding evolutionary links between them using
available fossil evidence.
The best known specimens of the extinct fishes from the Cam-
brian Period are from the groups Myllokunmingiida and Con-
odonta. Both provide a glimpse at the earliest form of ancestral
vertebrate creatures.
The Myllokunmingiida
In 1999, paleontologist Degan Shu and his colleagues at the China
University of Geosciences in Beijing announced the spectacular
Vertebrate Origins 69
discovery of the earliest known vertebrate, the jawless fish Myl

lokunmingia. Found among fossils of splendidly preserved inverte-
brates in the Chengjiang formation, this small, basal fish lived about
525 million years ago, in the Early Cambrian Epoch. Myllokun
mingia coexisted with trilobites, ancient shrimplike arthropods,
fossil worms, and large, free-swimming predatory anomalocarids
that measured several feet in length. Myllokunmingia measured
only about an inch long (28 mm). The much-celebrated discovery
of Myllokunmingia was followed by the finding of more than 500
additional specimens, thereby providing a wealth of information
about this early vertebrate.
As the earliest known jawless fish, Myllokunmingia shared
many of the traits that are seen in the better-known jawless fishes
of the Ordovician and Silurian Periods. Myllokunmingia had a
distinctly fishlike, elongate body with a tapered head. The dorsal
and ventral sides of the animal were adorned with long lateral fins,
and the tail was equipped with a single, unpaired fin. A sequence
of 24 V-shaped muscle bands extended along most of the length of
the body. There is little trace of hard parts, and there is certainly
no bony skeleton, suggesting that Myllokunmingia had an internal
skeleton made of cartilage. In most cases, cartilage totally decays
before an animal becomes fossilized, but traces in the form of
stains and impressions are sometimes left behind. Some specimens
of Myllokunmingia show the presence of a riblike basket extend-
ing laterally down from the back of the animal in the form of 25
paired arches, perhaps a preservational remnant or stain associated
with a cartilaginous skeleton. There are at least six gill slits running
along the side of the anterior end of the body. The head is clearly
defined as a region of darker preservation, including two blackish
spots that might represent a pair of eyes. The darker color of the
head of Myllokunmingia may also suggest that its anterior was pro-
tected by a harder outer covering. Such bony armor is more evident
in later jawless fishes.
In 2003, Degan Shu and his colleagues identified one more prim-
itive vertebrate from the fauna of the Early Cambrian Chengjiang
Formation. This was an eel-like creature named Zhongjianichthys
Myllokunmingiathe first known vertebratewas a jawless fish.
that clearly showed evidence of riblike vertebral arches and a pair

of eyes.
Myllokunmingia and Zhongjianichthys are more than a mere
foreshadowing of things to come in fishes. These two early verte-
brates prove that a remarkable evolutionary backstory was taking
place in the midst of the Cambrian invertebrate explosion of life.
These two tiny vertebrate fishesexhibiting gills, fins, notochords,
paired eyes, and elongate cartilaginous skeletonsshed light on the
early history of fishes that otherwise were known only from the
patchiest of evidence.
The Conodonta
Another long-lived group of early vertebrates was the conodonts, a
taxon that was largely a mystery for more than 125 years because
the remains of these creatures consisted only of tiny, toothlike
structures made of calcium phosphate. These structures were pre-
sumably held together in life by soft tissue that was not preserved
in the fossil record. The presence of calcium phosphate structures
alone was a tantalizing hint that the conodonts possessed hard
parts made of materials found only in vertebrates, but nothing else

was known to help scientists draw a more complete picture of these
creatures. Even the most enigmatic fossils may prove important to
paleontology if found in great enough numbers, however. In the
case of the conodonts, their tiny parts are so varied and abundant
in marine deposits ranging from Middle Cambrian to Triassic
times that they are used as an index fossil for dating stratigraphic
layers.
The name conodont most accurately refers to the denticle struc-
tures that once were part of the feeding apparatus of these animals,
although the name is used synonymously for the animal itself.
Conodonts are classified as the Conodonta, a primitive subclass
of jawless fishes. Conodonts first appear in fossil records from the
Middle Cambrian Epoch, which positions them in time between
the rise of the first vertebrates, such as Myllokunmingia, and the
dramatic rise of the better-known fishes from the Ordovician
Period.
Toothlike conodont structures are found in dozens of forms.
Some consist of isolated conical points and stubs; others are
attached to a jawlike substrate that resembles combs and crus-
tacean claws. All are tiny and require a microscope to examine
closely.
The fact that no complete specimen of a conodont creature had
been found in more than 125 years of looking did not discourage
some imaginative paleontologists from trying to reconstruct an
image of these animals. Most interpretations began with an attempt
to understand how the toothlike structures operated. This itself was
challenging because the parts were complex in form and jumbled
together from having become disassembled during the decay of the
animals. Making matters even more challenging for the paleontolo-
gist was the minute size of conodont remains; these tiny denticles
are barely visible to the naked eye and require magnification under a
microscope. Interpreting how conodont feeding mechanisms func-
tioned in life was akin to trying to assemble a power drill from a pile
of its loose parts.
If one assumed that the conodont fossils were in fact part of

a feeding mechanisma detail that at one time was disputed by
some scientistsit was clear that these were not jaws like those
normally seen in later vertebrates. Some paleontologists pictured
the conodont tooth apparatus covered by a membrane to facilitate
filter feeding. Others invented a variety of possible assemblages of
the tooth structures for grasping, sawing, chopping, and shredding
prey. Had a complete specimen of a conodont been found, the job
of interpreting its feeding mechanism would have been somewhat
easier. Lacking such a specimen, some conodont experts attempted
to picture the form of these creatures despite a paucity of physical
evidence. One of the most creative was Swedish conodont expert
Maurits Lindstrm (b. 1932), who, in the 1960s, pictured the con-
odont as a bloated, filter-feeding donut with spikes.
The true nature of the animals that carried these toothlike
structures was unknown until 1983, when the complete specimen
Clydagnathus was discovered. Found in rocks of Early Carbonif-
erous age in Edinburgh, Scotland, the fossil likeness was a mere
streak among many fossils of invertebrates that included extinct
shrimplike arthropods. Invertebrate paleontologists Euan Clark-
son (b. 1937) and Derek Briggs (b. 1950) then best known for their
studies of Paleozoic invertebrates, noticed the conodont specimen
among slabs of shale that they were studying at the Royal Scottish
Museum. Had they not been interested in the shrimplike fossils
adjacent to the conodont, it may never have been discovered. The
creature had an eel-like body that was a slight 1.6 inches (40.5 mm)
long. Examination under a microscope revealed that the specimen
had a group of conodont denticles collected at one end of the body.
Because Clarkson and Briggs were experts on arthropods rather
than conodonts, the two scientists called in acquaintance Rich-
ard Aldridge (b. 1945), a dedicated conodont specialist. One look
through the microscope convinced Aldridge that he had in fact
come face to face with the first known body fossil of a conodont.
The mysterious feeding mechanism could be seen in place in the
oral cavity of the head region.
Conodont structures
Toothlike conodont structures are so small

that they can rest on the head of a pin.
This first discovery of a conodont body fossil in Scotland was

followed by others in Scotland and South Africa. This startling
evidence provided paleontologists with convincing clues to the
vertebrate affinity of these early creatures. The eel-like body was
clearly bilateral and appeared to house a notochord laterally along
its back. The conodont form was also composed of V-shaped mus-
cle groupsthe bands of muscles found in similar vertebrates that
enabled the animals to wiggle their bodies and swim. The presence
of a clearly defined head and pharynx region and paired eyes also fit
with the traits associated with vertebrates. The presence of cellular
bone among fossilized conodont elements was confirmed in 1992
by a team of British paleontologists at the University of Durham.
One new conodont species called Promissum was originally
mistaken for a plant until Richard Aldridge investigated it. In 1990,
Aldridge confirmed that this organism was in fact a giant among
conodonts. The name Promissum remained, even though the
organism was no longer considered a plant. Found in Late Ordo-
vician sediments in South Africa, Promissum measured 16 inches
(40 cm) long. Additional specimens described in 1994 and 1995
clearly confirmed the presence of a pair of eyes on the head of this
conodont.
Having several specimens of conodont body fossils in hand also

led to better informed attempts to explain how the feeding mecha-
nism worked. Two colleagues of Aldridge, British paleontologists
Mark A. Purnell (b. 1964) and Philip C.J. Donoghue (b. 1971) of
the University of Leicester, produced the best-researched and most
comprehensive interpretation of this puzzling aspect of conodont
anatomy. In 1997, the pair published an extensive study using
three-dimensional modeling that showed the most likely mechanics
behind one of the most complex conodont forms, that of the species
Idiognathodus. This species is known only from fossils of its feeding
mechanism from Late Carboniferous rocks of Illinois. After experi-
menting with several different arrangements of the feeding mecha-
nism parts, Purnell and Donoghue favored an elaborate design that
gave these tiny animals a formidable tool for capturing, dicing, and
swallowing tiny prey. Long rows of spiky denticles were drawn back
and up to grasp prey and draw it into the mouth area. The teeth
were pointed backward to prevent prey from wriggling loose. After
the creature grasped the food in these denticles, the serrated tooth
elements would slice and chop the food like serrated scissors by
turning and scraping against one another. Further supporting this
model of the conodont feeding mechanism were microimages taken
by Purnell that showed wear patterns on the surface of the denticles.
This additional evidence not only shows that these conodont struc-
tures were indeed teeth, but also suggests that the first vertebrates
were predators.
The diet of conodonts can be implied from the design of their
feeding contraptions. There is no direct evidence in the form of
gut contents for the conodont diet, explained Aldridge in corre-
spondence with this author. But microwear patterns on a number
of conodont specimens show that at least some normal-sized con-
odonts ate resistant food, probably zooplankton [microscopic ani-
mals suspended in ocean water]. Functional considerations indicate
that conodonts were macrophagous [predators and/or scavengers]
on small prey, rather than being filter feeders of phytoplankton
[unicellular algae suspended in ocean water].
Mark Purnells computer model of a conodont jaw
The evolutionary position of the conodonts is apparently unre-

lated to vertebrates that followed. Although the conodonts exhibit
some of the characteristics of later fishes, including the presence of
cellular bone, a bilateral body plan, a pair of eyes, and a notochord,
their feeding apparatus remains unique in the animal kingdom.
Based on current evidence, it is doubtful that conodonts were in
the direct line of ascent to the plentiful families of fishes that rose
later. The Conodonta were more likely fantastically successful taxa
that evolved in parallel with fishes prior to becoming extinct in the
Triassic Period. Somewhere deeper in the past, at the base of the
vertebrate family tree, is a common ancestor of all vertebrates that
has yet to be discovered.
VERTEBRATES OVER TIME: THE BIG PICTURE

All 10 major fish groups have roots in the Ordovician Period, and
spectacular fossils of many kinds of extinct fishes become widely
abundant during the Silurian and Devonian Periods. Fishes of
many kinds also survived the Permian-Triassic extinction, tipping
the evolutionary balance in favor of the vertebrates that soon would
dominate Earths ecosystems on land and sea.
Vertebrates first evolved in the Paleozoic oceans; this evolution
led to the diversity of animals that are collectively known as fishes.
From the fishes sprang the amphibians that in turn led to the rep-
tiles, birds, and mammals. The relative success of these different
groups of vertebrates has been tempered over time by changes to
worldwide habitats, competition among the creatures themselves,
and the effects of extinction events. The peak of amphibian suc-
cess, for example, occurred during the Carboniferous and Permian
Periods, when vast rain forests made up the broad equatorial regions
of Paleozoic landmasses. The amphibians dominance dwindled
at the end of the Paleozoic Era for at least two reasons. The events
that caused the Permian-Triassic mass extinction included wide-
spread climate changes that shrank the vast, moist coal forests that
amphibians needed to survive. At the same time, another type of
vertebrate was on the risea type that was more adaptable to dif-
fering climate conditions: the reptile. In a like manner, the rise of
modern bony fishes may have been kept on hold during most of the
Paleozoic because of competition from earlier jawed fishes includ-
ing spiny sharks, placoderms, and cartilaginous fishes. The ranks of
bony fishes rose dramatically beginning in the Early Mesozoic Era.
The bony fishes rapidly grew in diversity and number and remain
the longest surviving jawed vertebrates. The history of the verte-
brates demonstrates a remarkable progression of adaptive features
over time.
Early vertebrate evolution
SUMMARY
This chapter discussed the origins of the first vertebrates.

1. Among the earliest chordates were the eel-like cephalochor-
dates.
2. Vertebrates first evolved in the Cambrian oceans as jawless
fishes.
3. The earliest known vertebrate is Myllokunmingia, from the
Early Cambrian of China.
4. Conodonts were another group of early vertebrates from
the early Paleozoic. They had a bilateral, eel-like body with
a notochord, V-shaped muscle bands along the body, and a
clearly defined head and pharynx region with paired eyes.
5. The first vertebrates were predatory animals.
6. The rise of fishes in the Paleozoic oceans led to the diversity
of backboned animals on land and sea that included the evo-
lution of amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds.
seCtiONthree:
THE RISE OF THE FISHES
5
JAWLESS FISHES
Following the origin of early fishesthe first vertebratesin
the Cambrian Period, the evolution of fishes underwent several
dramatic developmental episodes. These episodes were marked by
the appearance of many diverse groups, extinctions, and success
stories. Fishesthe most long-standing and successful group of
vertebrateswere also the stock from which land animals evolved
later in the Paleozoic Era.
It is assumed that the group of early fishes known as the Agnatha
evolved from a single ancestor. Because the class Agnatha probably
does not include all of the descendants of that ancestor, however, the
evolutionary relationships between different clans of jawless fishes
are not understood. All other fishes are members of the group Gna-
thostomata, which includes all jawed vertebrates, fish or otherwise.
Classes of jawed fishes within the gnathostomes, living and extinct,
include the Placodermi (flat-plated skins); Chondrichthyes (car-
tilaginous fishes); Acanthodii (spiny sharks); and Osteichthyes
(bony fishes). The rise of the jawless fishes from the Late Cambrian
Epoch and Ordovician Period to the close of the Devonian Period
(488 million to 359 million years ago) is the subject of this chapter.
TRAITS Of JAWlESS fISHES

As seen in Chapter 4, the fossil record of basal jawless fishes of the
Cambrian Period is relatively spotty except for the surprisingly
good evidence for a select few, including Myllokunmingia, Zhongji
anichthys, Clydagnathus and Promissum. The fossil record of the
Ordovician is equally stingy, consisting primarily of one taxon
known primarily from patches of body armor and two spectacular
80
Jawlessfishes 81
jawless fishes from late in the period. Other suspected fishes from
the Ordovician are known from little more than fragmentary pieces
of body armor and scales. Not until the fossil record of the Silurian
and Devonian Periods do significant body fossils of many kinds of
early fishes become apparent.
As of yet, there is a lack of definitive fossils to document an
evolutionary transition between the first Cambrian vertebrates
and the agnathans of the later Paleozoic. What we do know is this:
Sometime during the 80 million years between the rise of the earli-
est, eel-like vertebrates and the Late Ordovician Epoch, an entirely
new kind of animal had begun to populate the oceans. Instead of
having a slight and sliverlike body that wriggled through the ocean
currents, this creature was an armored plated, finless torpedo that
probably dwelled near the ocean floor, sucking up sediment for
scraps of food. One such fish was Astraspis.
These distinct clans of jawless fishes shared several characteris-
tics. Instead of having jawsa hallmark feature of later vertebrates
agnathans had simple mouth openings that they used to dredge up
food from silt or capture floating organisms in the water as they
swam. The agnathans skeletons were cartilaginous, composed
of gristle, and so left behind little fossil evidence of the creatures
internal body structure. Jawless fish bodies were protected by an
array of bony armor plates, or scales, or both. Most agnathans had
no fins and only a simple tail that could be wagged back and forth.
Agnathans had paired eyes in the head region, usually to the sides
or just above the mouth cavity.
Agnathans were small creatures; the largest types averaged only
about 12 inches (30 cm) long. Jawless fishes were mere small fry
in the waters of the Middle Paleozoic, which left no question as to
the need for protective outer armor. Agnathans had to guard against
significantly larger invertebrate predators, including water scorpi-
ons (eurypterids) and crustaceans, some of which reached lengths
of nine feet (2.5 m).
Even with their variety of body shapes and outer coverings, this
collection of early vertebrates succeeded in building, generation
after generation, taxon after taxon, a general direction for the body
plan of animals with backbones. The head became increasingly
defined as an important part of the anatomy. Encapsulated in pro-
tective outer bony plates, the brain of these early fishes began to
increase in size over the millennia of their evolution. The bilateral
symmetry of agnathans resulted in a well-defined body plan with
a sense of direction: Forward and backward motion were relative
to the anterior (head) and posterior (tail) ends of the animal. The
jawless fishes bodies could also be described as having upper and
lower surfaces and sides. Jawless fishes swam in one direction, head
first, propelled by a tail. Eyes at the front, adjacent to the mouth,
enabled jawless fishes to effectively locate and sweep food into their
suckerlike mouths. Taken as a whole, these anatomical develop-
ments were gradually perfecting the status of jawless fishes as cau-
tious background predators that combined a mobile body plan with
sharp senses, nerve structures, and the acumen needed to compete
successfully for food in the living ocean.
The fact that most jawless fishes were extinct by the end of the
Devonian Period is a testament to the benefit of having jaws: the
ability to grasp and consume a wider variety of prey more efficiently.
Although agnathans were highly successful for many millions of
years, they found it difficult to compete once their toothed brethren
had diversified. The only living descendants of agnathans are lam-
preys and hagfishes, two varieties of eel-shaped parasites that hitch
rides on larger fish. The ancestors of these living relics found a niche
for themselves that was unoccupied by jawed fishes, adapting over
time to the life of a parasite. A lamprey latches onto a host using a
tonguelike appendage equipped with prickly teeth and then sucks
the hosts blood or slowly eats its flesh. The agnathan Jamoytius,
found in Silurian deposits, was quite similar in form to the modern
lamprey. Although Jamoytius was probably not a parasite, it had an
elongate body with a pair of laterally placed, forward-facing eyes,
small rows of gill holes behind the eyes, and vertically oriented fins
running along the top and bottom of its body. This tubelike creature
Jawless Fishes 83
appeared to have suckers for a mouth and may have been an early
line of agnathans leading to the modern lampreys.
SUBGROUPS OF JAWLESS FISHES

As a class, the Agnatha include the living lampreys and hagfishes.
They also include a number of extinct groups, including Myllokun-
mingiida and Conodonta; the Astraspida, Arandaspida, Heteros-
traci, Anaspida, and Thelodonti; and the Osteostraci, Galeaspida,
and Pituriaspids.
Anatolepis
Aside from the exquisite examples of early vertebrates, fossils of
other jawless fishes from the Cambrian and Ordovician Periods are
extremely rare and fragmentary. Prior to the discovery in China of
Myllokunmingia and other early vertebrates from the Early Cam-
brian, the most provocative fossil of an early vertebrate had been
a scrappy specimen known as Anatolepis. Found in Spitzbergen,
Norway, the fossils were described in 1976 by paleontologists Tove
G. Bockelie and Richard Fortey (b. 1946). While examining marine
deposits for microfossils, the two paleontologists were surprised to
find what appeared to be tiny scales. The specimens were miniscule,
ranging from a mere 0.39 to 0.78 inches (1 to 2 mm) long. Closer
examination revealed that the specimens consisted of small sections
of scales attached to pieces of hard dermal skin. The microscope
also revealed tiny porous channels, which the scientists interpreted
as being evidence of apatite, along with spaces for nerves or blood
vessels. Since its discovery, additional specimens of Anatolepis have
been found in sedimentary rocks dating from the Late Cambrian
to Early Ordovician in North America, Greenland, Norway, and
Australia. A reexamination of all available Anatolepis specimens in
1996 established that the dermal material contained dentine, a hard
tissue unique to vertebrates.
There is not enough evidence to describe the appearance of
Anatolepis. The small size of the scales suggests an equally tiny
Evolution and diversification of early fishes
fish, probably only a few inches long. When Bockelie and Fortey
first described it, they considered Anatolepis to be a heterostracan,
a member of the first widely diverse group of fishes. Even with the
affinity of Anatolepis in doubt, however, its existence shows that
this fish appeared around the same time as the first conodonts. This
indicates that the development of early vertebrates was well under
way in several directions by the start of the Ordovician Period.
Astraspida and Arandaspida

While fragmentary fossil evidencemostly pieces of dermal
armoris generally the rule for Ordovician jawless fishes, there are
a few eye-opening exceptions. The most spectacular of these speci-
mens have been classed as members of the taxa Arandaspida and
Astraspida and consist of several dazzling examples.
The astraspids are represented by the lone taxon Astraspis, from
the Harding Sandstone formation of Colorado. Charles Walcott
Jawless Fishes 85
(18501927) discovered the first specimen in 1892. This was the

same man who in 1909 identified the marvelous Cambrian fossil
beds of the Burgess Shale in western Canada.
Astraspis lived during the Middle Ordovician Epoch, about
450 million years ago. The best Astraspis specimens have been
discovered in Colorado, although the creature is also known from
specimens found in Arizona, Oklahoma, Wyoming, and Quebec,
Canada. Measuring no more than 8 inches (20 cm) long, Astraspis
was adorned with vaguely star-shaped bony platesthe source of its
name, which translates to star shield. The head of Astraspis was
heavily armored by a shield of tilelike plates. Astraspis had two large
eyes positioned on the sides of its head. A small armored ringlet of
bony tubercules protected each eye. A sequence of eight branched
gill openings ran laterally on each side of the head. The head armor
ended about midway down the length of the body, at which point
the back end of Astraspis was covered by a matrix of small (and
more flexible) diamond-shaped scales. The creatures tail is not well
known from its fossils but is thought probably to have consisted of
a single, vertically oriented fin that the animal waved from side to
side to propel itself. The body of Astraspis lacked fins of any other
kind, making it a clumsy swimmer at best.
The Arandaspida are known from four genera, the best examples
of which are Arandaspis, from Early Ordovician rocks in Austra-
lia, and Sacabambaspis, from Late Ordovician deposits in Bolivia.
Arandaspids were also small; they measured between 6 and 8 inches
(15 and 20 cm) long and superficially resemble the projectile-shaped
astraspids. The details of the arandaspids body armor differ sig-
nificantly from the armor plating of their North American relatives,
however.
The arandaspids did not have a head shield composed of many
smaller, tilelike plates. Instead, the upper and lower armored head
plates of an arandaspid consisted of a one-piece, ornamented shield
coupled with one or more bony straps on the sides of the head. The
midline of the upper plate was ridged down the middle, and the
bottom plate dipped down into a deep, bowl-like shape. Rather than
having exposed gill holes, as did Astraspis, the arandaspids had

gills that were covered by a bony grille. The eyes of the arandaspids
Arandaspis and Sacabambaspis were farther forward than the eyes
of Astraspis and, in the case of Sacabambaspis, perched clearly on
the anterior end of the body. The back half of the arandaspid body
was covered by strips of bony armor rather than by small scales.
Specimens of astraspids and arandaspids, although few in num-
ber, fill some important gaps in the fossil record of early fishes.
Being poor swimmers, these fish probably stayed close to calm
waters near the bottom of shallow seabeds and scooped up detritus
and other organic material from silt and the water through which
they wriggled. A study of arandaspid dermal armor published
in 2005 by Ivan J. Sansom, Philip C.J. Donoghue, and Guillermo
Albanesi revealed that the bony armor of these creatures was partly
composed of apatite in the form of dentine and enamel. This pro-
vided additional evidence that these early vertebrates were part of a
lineage that also included the most abundant group of jawless fishes,
the Heterostraci.
Heterostraci
One of the most diverse and abundant groups of agnathans is from
the order Heterostraci. Numbering about 300 species, the heteros-
tracans thrived from the Early Silurian to the Late Devonian Epoch
(430 million to 370 million years ago). Heterostracans have been
found in such widespread Northern Hemisphere fossil localities as
North America, Greenland, Great Britain, Germany, Norway, Bel-
gium, Siberia, and China.
Like the astraspids and arandaspids, the heterostracans pos-
sessed a head shield that consisted of large upper and lower plates
and one or more smaller plates on the sides of the head. The head
armor was composed of dentine and noncellular bone and was
sometimes ornamented with sharp spines and ridges that ran
lengthwise along the body. The armor on the side of the head had
holes for gill openings. The armor plating of the head could grow
as the animal got older and larger. Heterostracans were generally
Jawless Fishes 87
small. They measured between 6 and 12 inches (15 and 30 cm) long
except for one group with a paddle-shaped body that measured up
to 3.33 feet (1 m) long and 50 inches (1.5 m) wide.
Heterostracans had little more than a tail fin to propel their
heavily armored bodies through the water, so swimming did not
come easy for them. Except for a few members of the group, most
heterostracans had about as much maneuverability as giant tadpoles
wrapped in chain mail. Heterostracans were most likely bottom
dwellers, taking in free-floating organisms along the sandy bot-
toms of near-shore marine environments and freshwater lakes and
streams. Despite many similarities with the astraspids and aranda
spids, the heterostracans were distinguished from them by having
several unique variations in the shape and size of the head armor
and by having single, rather than multiple, gill holes on either side
of the head for respiration.
Even with their design limitations, heterostracans were a longlived clade of vertebrates. The heterostracans spanned the Silurian
and Devonian Periods and reached their peak of diversity during
the Late Silurian and Early Devonian. The simplicity of their form
relied on external armor for protection, single gill openings that
minimized the number of invasive openings to their bodies, and
jawless, suckerlike mouths defined by a bony ridge that helped
scrape up food from the seafloor.
Heterostracans fall into four groups: the cyathaspids, the am
phiaspids, the pteraspids, and the psammosteids.
The cyathaspids had a long body that was entirely covered with
armor plates. The head was protected by large, single dorsal and
ventral plates. The gill openings were shielded by a bony strip on the
side of the head. Behind the head shield, the entire cyathaspid body
was covered by overlapping rows of diamond-shaped plates and
scales that somewhat resembled modern fish or reptile scales. The
cyathaspid tail, as seen in the species Athenaegis, was vertically ori-
ented and could be wagged from side to side. The jawless, suckerlike
mouth was quipped with a fanlike lower plate and bony upper plate.
These jawless fish had a streamlined body but no fins of any kind.
Model of the cyathaspid Athenaegis
This had led to speculation that they may have propelled themselves
by spurting out jets of water from their gill openings. The cyatha
spids were one of the longest surviving groups of heterostracans;
they thrived from the Late Silurian to the Early Devonian.
The amphiaspids were not around as long as the cyathaspids.
Amphiaspids have been found only in rocks that date from the Early
Devonian Epoch. Specimens from Siberia show that the amphiaspid
head was entirely encased in a solid armor shield. The tail was verti-
cally oriented, with a fin divided into rays by several tapered rows
of scales. Because amphiaspids such as Ctenaspis and Eglonaspis
had smaller eyes than other heterostracans and what appeared to be
a branchial opening (a gill opening) on top of the head shield, it is
thought that these fishes may have lived half-buried in bottom sedi-
ment. Completing the picture of this sedentary feeder was a bony
tube that led to the jawless mouth. Presumably, an amphiaspid such
Jawless Fishes 89
as Ctenaspis lay half buried in the mud, unable to see but able to
breathe and suck planktonic food through a bony mouth tube that
protruded upward.
The pteraspids lived from the Early to Middle Devonian and are
represented by many good specimens. In these jawless fishes, the
dorsal head shield was composed of several separate plates that var-
ied widely in shape and size. Hind scales on the body were smaller
than those of the cyathaspids, and the body was sometimes adorned
with spines and sharp ridges on the top and sides. Tails varied
among the many species of pteraspids. Pteraspid tails had two or
three vertically oriented joined fins that could be moved from side
to side. In some species, such as Pteraspis, the bottom tail fin was
markedly longer than the top fin. Notably, there were several rein-
forced bony structures of the head, including plates around the eyes,
the branchial opening, the mouth, and a long, pointed, snoutlike
rostrum (projection). Behind the head shield, the rear of the pter-
aspid body was covered with smaller scales that resembled those of
modern fish. This suggests that the fanlike tail could be swung back
and forth by a muscular body. The combination of a powerful tail
with bony, winglike side fenders made the pteraspids more maneu-
verable than other heterostracans. Assuming that these fish were
decent swimmers, the pteraspids probably roamed in moderately
deep water to feed on planktonic animals suspended in the water.
The large and paddle-shaped psammosteids were a departure in
many ways from other heterostracans. In cross section, the psam-
mosteids resembled rays with a bony outer covering. The psammo-
steids bodies were flat; this made them well suited for scavenging
through mud for food. The psammosteid head had a more complex
matrix of shield plates and scales than the heads of other heterostra-
cans. On top was a bony cap surrounded by rows of smaller, scale-
like plates. Separate bony plates protected the eyes, the gills, and
the mouth area. The sides of these fishes were covered by scalelike
rows of dermal armor; these joined with a belly plate equipped with
a yachtlike keel. The side gill openings were protected by a bony
A large predator swimming by the armor-plated bottom dwelling Heterostracan

Drepanaspis
channel reminiscent of the exhaust pipe on an automobile. To the

rear of the psammosteid body was a scaly tail with web-shaped fins
that could be waved up and down. The largest of these creatures,
represented by Drepanaspis, reached lengths of 3.33 feet (1 m). The
eyes of Drepanaspis were spread wide apart.
Anaspida
Two outlying groups of jawless fishes whose evolutionary relation-
ship with other agnathans is not entirely understood were the ana
Jawless Fishes 91
spids and thelodonts. Both groups had less body armor than other
jawless fishes, particularly around the head. Without much armor,
their fragile skeletons were not readily fossilized.
Anaspids were small- to medium-sized jawless fishes; they mea-
sured from 4 to 11 inches (10 to 27 cm) long. The body plan of such
anaspids as Pharyngolepis and Pterygolepis was more reminiscent of
modern fish than was the body plan of other agnathans. Anaspids
had a long, slender body that was shaped somewhat like a tube flat-
tened inward from the sides. The head region was made up of a large,
round mouth opening at the anterior; small eyes on the sides of the
head; and a row of 6 to 15 small gill openings that slanted downward
behind the eyes. Just behind these branchial openings was a spiny
point that is found in all anaspids. Although these fishes had no fins
on the upper side of the body, most had one small fin on the bottom,
near the anal opening. A long, finlike fold ran along each side of the
body from behind the gill openings to the tail. These side fins were
not stiff or muscled, so they did not serve as stabilizers while the fish
were swimming. Paired tail fins rose vertically along a downwardly
pointed tail. At least one taxon of advanced anaspids, Rhyncholepis,
had paired fins about midway along the belly side, just behind the
head region. This was a foreshadowing of anatomical improvement
in later jawless fishes and resembles somewhat the design of modern
lampreys, to which it is thought the anaspids might be ancestral.
The anaspid body was covered with long, thin scales that formed
a chevron pattern (^). These scales might disclose the location of
segmented muscles that would have helped these fishes to wriggle
through the water. Because the anaspids lacked dorsal fins and
strong side fins, however, they probably were poor swimmers.
The best known anaspids lived during a relatively short span of the
Late Silurian (430 million to 410 million years ago), but some possible
members of this group have been found in Late Devonian deposits.
The most complete anaspid specimens, including whole body impres-
sions, have been found in Silurian deposits in Norway and Scotland.
The anaspids thrived in marine coastal habitats of Europe and North
America and also made their way into fresh waters.
Thelodonti
Because the thelodonts lacked outer bony armor, they are known
primarily from one common physical feature that they left behind:
tiny, thick dermal scales that measure about 0.39 inches (1 mm)
long. The design of the scales is distinctive; they have a round or
oval shape with a ringlike edge and a pulp cavity. A few, rare body
fossils such as that of Archipelepis, from the Silurian of Arctic
Canada, show that the thelodonts had the general body plan of
other fish. The elongate body was somewhat flattened and covered
by its characteristic scales. Body armor was completely absent. The
anterior mouth opening was round and large, there were two small
eyes on the sides of the head, and eight gill slits ran along the side of
the head beneath a bony flap. The thelodonts also had small, finlike
flaps on the dorsal and ventral surfaces near the base of the tail. The
tail fin was long and projected downward.
One unusual group of thelodonts, including Furcacauda from
the Silurian and Devonian of the Canadian Northwest Territories,
broke the thelodont mold by having a tall, deep body that was
flattened vertically. This gave Furcacauda a humpbacked profile.
Furcacauda also had large eyes and a large, nearly symmetrical
forked tail. Most interesting, perhaps, is evidence for the presence
of a stomach in these Canadian thelodonts, an anatomical fea-
ture previously thought to have evolved later with the coming of
true jaws.
Thelodonts were small; they averaged about 7 inches (18 cm)
long. The earliest scales are found in the Middle to Late Ordovician
Epochs, but specimens of the entire body have been restricted to
younger deposits ranging from the Early Silurian to the Late Devo-
nian (430 million to 370 million years ago).
Osteostraci, Galeaspida, and Pituriaspida

The last stage of the great radiation of jawless fishes was domi-
nated by three groups that were known for their massive head
shields. All three cladesthe osteostracans, the galeaspids, and
the pituriaspidshad large, bony head armor that covered the gill
Jawless Fishes 93
openings. Unlike the head shields of the heterostracans, which were

composed of individual plates that could expand as the animal grew
larger, the head armor of these three groups of agnathans was not
jointed and could not grow.
There were more than 200 species of osteostracans. They are
found in fossil beds that date from the Early Silurian to the Late
Devonian (430 million to 370 million years ago) and are widely dis-
tributed in the Northern Hemisphere: in North America, Europe,
Siberia, and Central Asia. Osteostracans ranged widely in size, from
a tiny 1.5 inches (4 cm) to a gigantic 3.33 feet (1 m) long. Most aver-
aged between 8 and 16 inches (20 and 40 cm) in length.
The body of an osteostracan was wide and flat-bottomed; it
was well adapted for bottom feeding. The shape and curvature of
the head shield was somewhat like that of the modern horseshoe
crab. The osteostracan head was composed of one bony, protective
piece with two closely spaced holes for eyes that were largely aimed
upward. The body behind the head shield was covered by large
scales.
The head shields of osteostracans were highly ornamented and
varied from species to species. The armor of Hemicyclaspis was
relatively simple; it consisted of a simple, curved semicircular piece
of bone that resembled a knee pad used by in-line skaters. Other
species were adorned with increasingly distinctive shields. Some
shields got broader and deeper; others formed sharp spines at the
side of the head; several had backward-pointing bony wings that
protected the gills. At least two species developed highly elongated
rostrums.
Osteostracans were possibly the most advanced of the jawless
vertebrates and had many affinities with the jawed fishes that fol-
lowed. Most significantly, osteostracans were the first jawless fishes
to have true, paired pectoral fins. Positioned on the sides of the ani-
mal, just behind the head shield, these appendages may have been
the forerunners of modern fins on fishesand the precursors of
THINK ABOUT IT
theOldredsandstoneofscotland:
hughMillerandthePopularizationofscience
One of the most abundant sources of fossil Devonian jawless fishes, placoderms, acanthodians, and lobe-finned fishes is the Old Red Sandstone
formation of northern Scotland. This area, rich in fossil deposits, was
once the site of an expansive subtropical lake. A periodic cycle of natural
fish kills in that lake is now revealed by thousands of fish fossils laid bare
in various red sandstone deposits across various parts of Scotland.
Chemical analysis of the deposits suggests that the fish kills occurred
during times when the oxygen content of the lake was at dangerously low
levelslevels that literally suffocated many of the lakes fish inhabitants.
Anoxic events of this kind can occur during a severe bloom of lake algae.
The same effect can occur when the anoxic deep waters of such a lake
are stirred to the top, perhaps as a result of a violent storm or tectonic
event. Whatever the cause, it seems that about every 10 years, a large
number of the lakes inhabitants died off, floated to the middle of the
lake, and then sank into the deepest, anoxic waters, where they became
covered by fine sediment. Because the carcasses were so deep in the
lake, where the oxygen content was so low, they were spared from being
scavenged. This left many of their skeletons wholly intact. Over several
thousands of years, many layers of fossils built up on the lake bottom,
laminated in thin layers of mud and stacked with intervening layers of
sandstone that lacked fossils. Eventually, the layers built up to thicknesses of up to 33 feet (10 m). The Old Red Sandstone gets its name from
the rusty color of the sediments.
Hugh Miller was a Scottish stonemason, amateur geologist, and
poet who opposed the idea that life-forms evolved over time to generate new species. Miller scoured areas near his home for fossils and collected a vast number. Miller did not believe that humans evolved from
earlier, ancestral life-forms. Restricting his observations to the fossil
fauna of the Scottish red sandstone, Miller was unable to see obvious
connections between earlier forms of life and later ones. He stated at
Jawlessfishes 95
one point that the early fossils

ought to be very small in size
and very low in organization.
He expected to see simpler and
smaller life-forms in the earlier
strata and larger, more complex
ones in the later strata. Instead,
Miller found a diverse assemblage of fishes of many shapes
and sizes in all strata. This led
him to believe in the theory of
special creationthe theory
that God created life in several consecutive efforts, with
each effort concluded by a mass
extinction that wiped the slate
Hugh Miller
clean. Millers studies of fossil
formations and his interest in
geology, however, allowed him
a broader, scientific view of some of the other issues that confounded
nonscientists. He believed that organisms could become extinct. He also
believed that the age of the Earth was geologically vast and that there
is no geologic proof for a global flood such as that recounted in the story
of Noah in the Bible.
Equipped with a poetic style of rhetoric and a persuasive personality,
Miller aimed his own writing at a popular audience. His most famous book,
The Old Red Sandstone, was published in 1841. The book provided the
public with an imaginative view of fossils and their origins, making it one
of the most important early works to popularize the sciences of geology
and paleontology. Miller ably mixed scientific description with metaphysical musings.
(continues)
(continued)
By the mid-1850s, the stonemason poet had become a popular
speaker on subjects related to religion and the fossil record. Unfortunately, Millers health deteriorated, as evidenced by severe headaches and
apparent bouts of depression and hallucinations that the doctors of his
day were unable to diagnose. Miller died in 1856, after completing the last
of his works to be published. Millers extraordinary collection of Devonian
fossils and his inspired style of discourse influenced many people to take
an interest in science and examine the natural world as revealed by geology and fossils.

paired limbs in land vertebrates. Some osteostracans, such as Hemi
cyclaspis, also had a single dorsal fin placed far along the back and
a large, upward-pointing lobe on the tail. This tail design differed
from most other jawless fishes, which had down-turned tails. The
upward-pointing tail enabled Hemicyclaspis to keep its body pointed
toward the seafloor, a terrific adaptation for a bottom-feeding fish.
When considered as a working unit, the pectoral flaps, dorsal fin,
and tail made the osteostracans some of the most capable swimmers
among the agnathans.
Another important aspect of heterostracan anatomy was that
these fishes were one of the first vertebrates to show evidence of a
bony skeleton. As an osteostracan grew, bone was laid down inside
its body over the surface of the cartilaginous skeleton. Bone will
fossilize whereas cartilage will not, so specimens of osteostracans
provide some of the earliest clues to the internal anatomy of the
vertebrates. The detail inside the fossilized head shield is so fine in
some fossil specimens that it provides a clear picture of the nerve
connections and sensory functions of these jawless fish.
Jawlessfishes 97
Like the osteostracans, the galeaspids had an oversized head

shield in which both the endoskeleton and exoskeleton contained
bone. The front of the shield contained a large opening on the upper
surface, probably for respiration. Behind the head shield, the body
was protected by smaller scales arranged in rows. Galeaspids dif-
fered significantly from osteostracans in that the galeaspids lacked
paired side fins and had no dorsal fins. The galeaspids head shields
were in some ways even more distinctive than those of the osteos-
tracans. The shields of the galeaspids took on square and triangular
forms, had elongated rostrums, and had long spiny rostrums on the
sides. Fossils of galeaspids are found in deposits from the Silurian
and Devonian Periods in southern China and Vietnam.
The pituriaspids are known only from two fragmentary species
found in Early Devonian deposits in Queensland, Australia: Pitu
riaspis and Neeyambaspis. The only trait that clearly distinguishes
these incomplete specimens from the osteostracans and galeaspids
is a large pit found on the upper surface of the head shield just below
the eyes.
THE lABORATORy Of EARly fISHES

The agnathans were the first successful vertebrates, yet this experi-
ment in the evolution of backboned animals sputtered to a close by
the middle of the Paleozoic as more advanced fishes grew in abun-
dance and sophistication. The jawless fishes established several key
trends in vertebrate design, including the development of the head,
an elongate body with clearly defined functional regions, the earli-
est paired appendages, eyes, and increasingly calcified bony struc-
tures on the exterior and interior of the body. The jawless fishes,
however, were in some ways the victims of their own success. Their
head armor and bony scales made them heavy, clumsy swimmers,
destined for bottom feeding. Their basal fins and tails were not
designed for swimming in the open ocean and restricted the fishes
habitat to the floors of oceans and freshwater lakes. The jawless
feeding orifices of the agnathans also restricted the kinds of food
they could consume.
SUMMARy
This chapter described the rise of the jawless fishes from the Late
Cambrian Epoch and Ordovician Period to the close of the Devo-
nian Period.
1.The earliest vertebrates are called Agnatha (no jaw) or
jawless fishes; they are a collection of ocean and freshwater

vertebrates that predate the development of bony jaws.
2.Jawless fishes range in time from the Early Cambrian to the
close of the Devonian Period (525 million to 359 million years
ago); they were most widespread during the Silurian and
Devonian Periods.
3.Key anatomical traits of agnathans included a simple, round,
jawless mouth opening; a cartilaginous skeleton; bony armor
plates and scales; a lack of true fins; simple tails; paired eyes;
and gill slits or openings on the side of the head.
4.The bilateral symmetry of agnathans resulted in a well-
defined body plan based on a sense of direction: Forward
and backward motion were relative to the anterior (head) and
posterior (tail) ends of the animal.
5.Groups within the Agnatha include the living lampreys and
hagfishes and extinct groups that include the Myllokun-
mingia and Conodonta, the Astraspida and Arandaspida, the
Heterostraci, the Anaspida, the Thelodonti, and the Osteros-
traci, Galeaspida, and Pituriaspida.
6.Heterostraci were one of the most diverse and abundant
groups of agnathans, with about 300 species that ranged in
time from the Early Silurian to Late Devonian epochs (430
million to 370 million years ago).
7.Osteostracans were possibly the most advanced of the jawless
vertebrates and have many affinities with the jawed fishes
that followed.
8.Jawless fishes established several key trends in vertebrate
design that led to the evolution of the jawed and bony fishes.
6
VERTEBRATE INNOVATIONS
The evolution of early vertebrate anatomy took many small but
incrementally significant steps during the time of the jawless fishes.
It was during the time of the agnathans that the vertebrate body
plan evolved; this involved, most importantly, the formation of the
head region, a cartilaginous skeleton, a brain center, eyes, body
armor, jawless feeding mechanisms, and the ability to maneuver
with some skill in the water. These early fish, although considered
predatory, were filter feeders and mostly dwelled on the ocean
floor. Filter feeders are limited by the size and kind of food they can
take in. This limits their ability to become larger, more dominant
creatures.
By the Late Silurian Epoch, about 420 million years ago, another
innovation was taking place in the anatomy of the vertebrates. This
was the appearance of the first fishes with jaws and a transition
from filter feeding to biting food. The development of the first jaws
was nothing short of a revolution for backboned creatures. Without
jaws, vertebrates may have been relegated to the backwaters of Earth
history and may never have left the shallows of the ocean to conquer
the land. Other dramatic anatomical innovations also led to the
expansion of backboned creatures into many new modes of life.
THE ORIGIN Of JAWS

The first jaws evolved as a modification of the gill arches of the
pharynx. Jawless fishes had a simple, round mouth opening and
no teeth. The mouth led to a tubular structure flanked on the sides
by multiple gill openings, which sometimes numbered as many as
10. The gill openings were in turn supported by a series of jointed,
99
The evolution of innovative anatomical traits of early vertebrates
cartilaginous arches just behind the mouth. Muscles contracted

and expanded the gill arches to pump water through the gills. The
agnathan head region also had a braincase positioned between the
frontmost of the gill arches.
As the agnathans advanced, the mouth opening became larger
in some taxa, and the anterior gill arches gradually folded over for-
ward at the center joint and became the upper and lower jaws. These
were attached by ligaments to the braincase, which anchored them.
Pharyngeal muscles that once were used to pump water adapted to
power the opening and closing action of the jaws. The first teeth
were nothing more than bumps that derived from adjacent scales
of the agnathans dermal armor. These scales were composed of
Vertebrate Innovations 101
dentine, like modern vertebrate teeth, and gradually became larger,

sharper, and more specialized over many millions of years of fish
evolution.
The Importance of Jaws

The evolution of the first jaws had a profound effect on the direc-
tion of vertebrate development. Jaws were the vertebrates meal
ticket away from the life of a bottom-dwelling filter feeder to that of
a free-swimming, agile predator. With jaws came the ability to eat
larger types of plant and animal food. This opened up entirely new
adaptive opportunities that affected the growth, range, and design
of fish. Jaws improved the predatory skills of an animal by provid-
ing options for capturing, holding, manipulating, and processing
food that were never available to agnathans. The ability to increase
nutritional intake led to the development of the stomach for stor-
ing and digesting food. Vertebrates grew larger, had more food
options, and spread into increasingly diverse habitats. Moveable
jaws allowed fishes to eat a wider variety and size of invertebrates
but also led to a fish-eat-fish world of increasingly specialized jaw
mechanisms.
The development of jaws also separated the functions of eating
and breathing, which previously had been joined in jawless fishes.
During the early evolution of fishes, when these two vital functions
were joined, each function was somewhat compromised by having
to accommodate the other. When vertebrates divided these func-
tions into two separate anatomical mechanisms, eating and breath-
ing functions began to advance rapidly in tandem. This improved
the adaptability of fishes to many environmental conditions. Gills
gradually became larger, with more filaments; this improved the
fishes ability to extract oxygen from the water. The size and func-
tion of jaws adapted to the habits and food sources available to dif-
ferent taxa of fish, and teeth became increasingly specialized.
THINK ABOUT IT
LivingfishesWithoutJaws
Some kinds of fishes still survive without the benefit of jaws. The only
living relatives of the extinct agnathans are jawless fishes from two recognized subphyla: the Hyperotreti, or hagfishes, and the Cephalaspidomorphi, or lampreys.
There are about four genera and 20 species of known hagfishes. Hagfishes range in length from about 18 inches (46 cm) to 45 inches (116 cm).
Considered the most primitive group of living chordates, the hagfishes are
found in cold-water marine environments in both hemispheres. Hagfishes
lack paired fins and vertebrae; they rely on a slender notochord for support
along the axis of their bodies. Hagfishes are blind but have a strong sense
of smell. Long and eel-like, the hagfish has a frill-like fin at the anterior end.
The creatures round, open mouth is encircled by four pairs of sensory
tentacles. Hagfishes live buried in the bottom sand or mud of their marine
environment. They feed on soft-bodied invertebrates but also scavenge
dead or dying fish in a most remarkable way. They enter the open mouth
The hagfish is a living jawless fish.
vertebrateinnovations 103
Lampreys use a suckerlike mouth and teeth to attach themselves to the

outside of a fish so they can suck the fishs blood.
of a weakened or dead fish and eat the body from the inside out, leaving
behind an empty carcass that consists only of skin and bones.
Lampreys are commonly found in temperate waters of lakes and
oceans. There are about nine genera and 40 species of living lampreys.
The eel-like body of the lamprey can range from 5 to 40 inches (13 to
100 cm) long. The lamprey has a tail fin but lacks paired appendages.
Unlike hagfishes, lampreys have eyes. All lampreys breed in freshwater, but some species migrate to the sea at maturity. Lampreys include
parasitic and nonparasitic varieties. The lampreys most notable anatomic
features are a round, suckerlike mouth encircled by numerous teeth and a
tongue with filelike rasps. Parasitic species of lampreys use their suckerlike mouths and teeth to attach themselves to the outside of a fish and
then use their rasping tongues to scrape away the bony scales on the skin
of their prey. After it clears a spot with its tongue, a lamprey will puncture
the skin of its prey and suck the fishs blood.
The giant placoderm Dunkleosteusthe largest predator of the Devonian

oceansattacks the shark Cladoselache, which was 6 feet (about 2 m)
long.

There was plenty of room for experimentation as well. The larg-
est predator of the Devonian Period was the enormous fish Dun
kleosteus (see Placoderms below). Growing to lengths of 30 feet
(10m), Dunkleosteus was a somewhat clumsy swimmer. Neverthe-

less, this monstrous creature was at the top of the food chain. Instead
of classic teeth made of dentine, it sported a powerful jaw lined with
jagged, axelike bony plates that could slice its prey into bite-size
morsels.
All but a few parasitic kinds of jawless fishesthe hagfish and
the lampreysbecame extinct after the rapid rise of jawed fishes.
For the purpose of classification, all jawed fishes are placed within
the group gnathostomes (jaw-mouthed), which includes the early
bony fishes and cartilaginous fishes (sharks and ray, for example).
Jaws expanded the predatory opportunities for fishes and led to
the refinement of other anatomical features that favored the ability
to seek prey and the ability to escape predators. Chief among these
features were those that improved swimming ability.
FINS AND TAILS: IMPROVING THE MOBILITY

OF EARLY FISHES
What is a fish if not an excellent swimmer? This ability can be
assumed in the fishes that live today. The ability to swim with power
and maneuverability was not an inherent feature of the earliest ver-
tebrates, however. The ability to swim effectively evolved over time
as the first fishes adapted to changing habitats and lifestyles. Jaws
were the catalyst that enabled fishes to move up from a bottomdwelling lifestyle to that of an active swimmer.
Swimming did not come easily to the first vertebrates. The rib-
bonlike or tubular bodies of the Myllokunmingiida and Conodonta
probably could wriggle rapidly but probably did so without much
maneuverability. Most other jawless fishes adapted to the lifestyle
of bottom-dwelling vacuum cleaners. They sucked up food as they
hovered over the ocean floor. Their bodies usually were weighed
down by dermal armor and lacked any but the most rudimentary,
ribbonlike fin appendages, and their tails were inadequate for the
kinds of navigation required by truly agile swimmers. Exceptions
to this rule included the osteostracans and some advanced members
of the anaspids.
The osteostracans were the first fish to have true paired fins
on their sides. Anaspids such as Rhyncholepis had a pair of fins
positioned closer to the bottom side of the body, just past the head
region. Both of these experiments hinted at numerous improve-
ments to fin and tail anatomy that bloomed fully in jawed fishes.
Some agnathans also had remarkably streamlined bodies; but no
known agnathan exhibited the entire array of adaptations required
for highly maneuverable swimming: the fins, tails, and streamlined
body that are so familiar in todays fishes. These traits came together
for the first time after the appearance of jawed fishes.
The presence of jaws intensified the evolution of fishes in direc-
tions that made them more active and mobile. Traits that favored
improved maneuverability were paramount in this development
and marked yet another significant milestone in the evolution of
vertebrates.
The bodies of jawed fishes became increasingly more stream-
lined than those of their agnathan predecessors. Water is a thick
medium, and a creature must have a low-resistance profile to glide
through it easily. The streamlining of the fish body began with the
anterior or snout end. Jawed fishes did away with the heavy dermal
armor plates of the agnathans and developed a narrow, pointed
anterior that could slice through the water like a wedge. Just behind
the head of a jawed fish is the thickest, largest part of the body. From
there the body narrows significantly, further reducing resistance to
the water and minimizing turbulence.
Having a streamlined body was a significant improvement for
jawed fishes, but their full potential as active, agile swimmers was
not completed until they developed a full complement of fins. There
are several requirements for becoming an active swimmer in the
world of the jawed fishes:
Tail (caudal) fin. This fin has to be large, muscular, and
easily flapped from side to side (not up and down) to muscle

a fish through the water. A tail is the motor of a fish; it
provides nearly endless thrust for moving forward.
One or two dorsal (back) fins. Without a dorsal fin, a fish would
roll over when the tail thrust was forward. A dorsal fin is a
stabilizer that prevents a fish from rolling over uncontrollably.
Ventral (anal) fin. This fin is positioned on the underside
of a fish, near the base of the tail (the location of the anus).
Like the keel of a boat, the ventral fin is a stabilizer. It is used
for changing direction.
Paired pectoral fins (at the shoulder) and pelvic fins (at the
hip). These two pairs of fins are positioned anywhere from
the lower to the middle side of a fish. Working together,
paired fins provide the lift necessary to help a fish go up and
down, put on the brakes, or even (in some species) move
backward. Paired fins are also like rudders; they help a fish
make quick turns to the side. The first fishes to master the
seas as superb swimmers were the fast-moving ancestors of
sharks and bony fishes.
THE SWIM BLADDER

Another vertebrate innovation that contributed to the success of
bony fishes was their ability to remain naturally buoyant in the
water. By contrast, sharks, whose bodies are made up of cartilage
instead of bone, are heavier than water. There is a good reason why
sharks developed as hyperactive swimmers: If sharks stop moving,
they sink.
Even the earliest bony fishes had developed a unique new fea-
ture that added buoyancy to their bodies. These fishes had a pair
of air sacks in the lower abdomen that could be filled with air to
allow them to sink to a given level in the water. To control the
amount of buoyancy, the earliest jawed fishes gulped or expelled
air into these sacks by coming to the surface of the water. In later
ray-finned fishes, these air sacks evolved into a swim bladder that
could exchange gases internally, allowing the fishes to change their
buoyancy without having to come to the surface. Without a swim
bladder, a bony fish would have to keep on the move at all times,
like a shark.
Not all taxa of bony fishes developed swim bladders. The mostly
extinct group known as lungfishes developed lungs for breathing
air, like land animals, as well as gills for breathing in water.
THE FIRST JAWED FISHES

The first vertebrates with jaws appeared in the Late Ordovician
Epoch. Their size, shape, and general anatomy is reminiscent of the
jawless fishes that came before them, but they also share some affin-
ities with the more derived bony fishes and sharks that followed.
These basal members of the gnathostomes are divided into two
groups, the Acanthodii, or spiny sharks, and the Placodermi. Nei-
ther group appears to be ancestral to fishes that followed, and each
became extinct by the end of the Devonian Period.
Acanthodians
The first vertebrates to have jaws were the Acanthodii, or acantho-
dians, also known by the popular name of spiny sharks or spiny
skins. Acanthodians were mostly small fish; they measured from
4 to 6 inches (10 to 15 cm) long. Despite their popular name, they
were not related to the sharks. The name spiny shark refers to the
acanthodians sharklike, streamlined body and their long upturned
tail that resembles that of a true shark.
The body of an acanthodian was slender and tall, with one or
two dorsal fins, an anal fin, and as many as six pairs of additional
fins along the underside. The eyes were large and perched far for-
ward on the head. The jaws were long, but most acanthodians lacked
teeth. These fish probably thrived at middle depths, where their
large eyes enabled them to see quite well in the dimmer light. Those
species that lacked teeth probably gobbled up smaller fish that could
be scooped up in pursuit, gnashing them with their bony jaws or
swallowing them whole.
The bodies of these small fishes appear to have adapted in ways
that provided them with some degree of protection from larger
predators. The fin design of acanthodians was an elegant evolution-
ary experiment. Most of the fins were composed of a sharp spine to
which a web of skin was stretched into a triangular shape. With most
of the upper and lower surfaces protected by these spines, acanthodi-
ans were probably a distasteful surprise to larger fish that tried to eat
them. The backward-aiming spines along the bottom of the acantho-
dian would most certainly have stuck in the gullet of many a predator.
At least one species, Acanthodes, may have been able to flex the spines
upward when attacked, furthering its chances of escaping.
Although the remains of acanthodian endoskeletons are rarely
seen, it is presumed that those skeletons were composed of cartilage
like those of earlier jawless fishes. The acanthodian body was covered
with tightly fitting scales composed of bone and dentine. Behind the
jaws on either side of the head were five gill slits. Depending on the
species of acanthodian, these slits were protected by one or more
bony flaps. Acanthodians were most abundant during the Devonian
Period and lived in saltwater and freshwater habitats.
Placoderms
Looking much like their armored jawless predecessors, the placo-
derms were a diverse collection of armored jawed fishes. The name
placoderm, meaning plated skins, refers to the large, interlock-
ing bony plates that protected the heads of these fishes. The plates
were curved and articulated at their joints to provide flexibility,
especially where the head shield met the trunk shield. The body
Placoderm anatomy
The arthrodirid placoderm Groenlandaspis
behind the trunk region was not armor plated and sometimes had a
fine bony mesh protecting it or no scaly covering at all. These com-
mon characteristics aside, placoderms came in many sizes, ranging
from the diminutive Groenlandaspis (19 inches, or 50 cm, long) to
the truly monstrous Dunkleosteus (30 feet, or 10 m, long), a bigeyed, axe-jawed top predator of the Devonian oceans.
Placoderms arose in the Silurian, were most abundant in the
Devonian Period, but died off sharply by the Early Carboniferous.
Placoderms consisted of six clades: Acanthothoraci, Rhenanida,
Antiarchi, Petalichthyida, Ptyctodontida, and Arthrodira. Four of
the most diverse groups were the rhenanids, the antiarchs, the ptyc-
todontids and the arthrodires.
Rhenanids
The flattened, rounded bodies of the rhenanids disclose a bottomdwelling life. One of the earliest groups of placoderms, this unusual clade appears superficially very much like the modern rays.
The species Gemuendina, from the

Devonian of Germany, had pectoral
fins that were expanded enormously
into winglike lobes. Gemuendinas
body was flat and rounded, and the
creature had a long, narrow tail.
The eyes of Gemuendina were on
the top of its head and were sur-
rounded by armor plates, as were
its nostrils and mouth. These armor
plates were connected to Gemuen
dinas sides by a matrix of flexible,
chain-mail-like dermal armor. Al-
though unrelated to the true rays,
which evolved over 250 million
years later than Gemuendina, the
similar body plans of the rhenanids
and the rays are a good example of
convergent evolution.
Model of the rhenanid placoderm

Gemuendina
Antiarchs
The antiarchs were small. Most reached only about 1 foot (30 cm) in
length. They were the most heavily armored of the placoderms, with
dermal shields that covered the head and about half the length of the
body. Behind the dermal plates, the body was more normally scaled;
this made these creatures appear somewhat like normal fishes but
with their head in a box. The best known and most widely distrib-
uted antiarch species, Bothriolepis, is represented by more than 100
specimens from around the world that date from the Late Devonian.
Bothriolepis had a slender, somewhat flattened body. This indicates
that it was a bottom feeder. The creature also had a most unusual
pectoral appendage. Just behind the head on either side, Bothriolepis
had a pair of crablike pectoral fins with tiny spines. Bothriolepis
presumably used these to help it move about as it hovered on the
seafloor or lake bottom.
Ptyctodontids
Ptyctodontids such as Ctenurella, from the Late Devonian of Aus-
tralia, were small fishes about 5 inches (13 cm) long. Ptyctodontids
had less armor than any other placoderms. The wide, roundish head
of Ctenurella featured large eyes close to the dorsal surface. Behind
the head, Ctenurellas body tapered quickly to a long, narrow tail
with a large dorsal fin. Ctenurella also had pairs of sizeable pectoral
and pelvic fins, indicating that this small fish probably had aboveaverage maneuverability. Its small but sturdy jaws were equipped
with bony tooth surfaces for grinding up shellfish. Ctenurella prob-
ably roamed over the seafloor, eating tiny urchins and shellfish.
Arthrodires
The most abundant and varied clade of placoderms was the arthro-
dires, or jointed neck fishes. Arthrodires species numbered about
200 and make up about 60 percent of all known placoderms. The
diversity of this group is surprising; it is represented by small,
armored taxa that measured only 1 foot (30 cm) long and by the
largest predator of its time, Dunkleosteus, which measured up to
30 feet (10 m). Coccosteus, from the Middle and Late Devonian of
North America and Europe, was about 16 inches (40 cm) long. It was
equipped with light trunk armor, large pectoral and pelvic fins, and
a long finned tail. All these features indicate that Coccosteus was a
good swimmer. Instead of teeth, the arthrodires had sharp, beaklike
plates of bone in their jaws that could crunch and slice even the larg-
est prey. A key, unifying trait of arthrodires was an unusual ball and
socket joint that articulated the shoulder and head. This allowed an
arthrodire to rotate its head backward, giving its formidable mouth
an even wider gape.
THE RADIATION OF FISHES

The anatomical innovations of jaws, fins, a streamlined body, and,
in some cases, air sacks and swim bladders resulted in the explosive
diversity and spread of fishes in the Middle to Late Paleozoic. Among
the first experiments in jawed fishes were the acanthodians and plac-
oderms, two groups that exhibit a mosaic of vertebrate experiments
in adaptability. The time of the acanthodians and placoderms was

short; it extended only from the Late Silurian to the Early Carbon-
iferous. But these creatures represented the first extensive success of
jawed vertebrates, and they were followed by the even more successful
bony fishes and cartilaginous fishesPaleozoic lineages with direct
ties to fishes living today.
SUMMARY
This chapter explained how jaws evolved in vertebrates and de-
scribed some other dramatic anatomical innovations that led to the
expansion of backboned creatures into many new modes of life.

1. Agnathans, the jawless fishes, established many of the key-
stones of the vertebrate body plan, including the formation of

the head region, the cartilaginous skeleton, the brain center,
the eyes, body armor, jawless feeding mechanisms, and the
ability to maneuver with some skill in the water.
2. The evolution and diversity of jawless fishes was restricted by
their status as filter feeders.
3. The first jaws evolved as a modification of the gill arches of
the pharynx.
4. With jaws came the ability to eat larger types of plant and ani-
mal food; this opened up entirely new adaptive opportunities
that affected the growth, range, and design of fish.
5. Jawed fishes combined several new anatomical features to
improve their ability as swimmers; these included tails, fins,
streamlined bodies, and air sacks for buoyancy.
6. The anatomical innovations of jaws, fins, a streamlined body,
and, in some cases, air sacks and swim bladders resulted in the
explosive diversity and spread of fishes in the latter Paleozoic.
7. The first vertebrates to have jaws were the acanthodians, also
known by the popular name of spiny sharks.
10
7
CARTILAGINOUS
GEOLOGIC TIME
FISHES:
THE SHARKS AND RAYS
The Chondrichthyes, or cartilaginous fishes, including sharks,
were some of the first vertebrates with jaws and bony teeth. About
60 families of sharks and their kin arose during the Paleozoic Era
and became the top ocean predators during the Devonian and Car-
boniferous Periods.
The Chondrichthyes are so named because all members of this
clade have skeletons made of cartilage (gristle), a noncalcified skel-
etal material. Cartilage is a firm but flexible tissue that does not
stretch. Unlike cellular bone, cartilage is not infused with channels
for blood vessels or nerves. Cartilage is alive, however, and its cells
grow by absorbing oxygen and nutrients from surrounding blood
vessels. Cartilage is also present in vertebrates with bony skeletons
in the form of connective tissue. Examples of cartilage that can
readily be seen in humans include the outer ear flap and the tip of
the nose. Cartilage also forms much of the skeleton of vertebrate
embryos and young but is calcified into bone over time as the ani-
mal matures.
The chondrichthyans are divided into two groups, the Elasmo-
branchii (plated gills), a group that consists of sharks, dogfishes,
skates, and rays, and the Holocephali (whole head), a group that
includes ratfishes and chimaeras. Of these, only the sharks and
Holocephali are known from the Paleozoic Era.
TRAITS Of CARTIlAGINOUS fISHES

When vertebrates were first evolving, during the Cambrian and
Silurian Periods, one trait that led to their great success in the
114
Cartilaginousfishes:thesharksandrays 115
Paleozoic Era was their ability to swim. The ability to swim effec-
tively involves several interrelated anatomical and physiological
specializations. These include having a streamlined body, having a
tail and fins for power and maneuverability, and having control over
buoyancy in the water. Although the evolutionary link between the
earliest cartilaginous fishes and bony fishes is not known, it appears
that they were related to a common ancestral line of jawless fishes
that seeded their separate lineages with the fundamental character-
istics of swimmers. From these jawless vertebrates, the sharks and
bony fishes inherited their bilaterally symmetrical body plans and
rudimentary fin and tail configurations. Sometime during the Silu-
rian, however, the cartilaginous fishes and bony fishes took separate
evolutionary paths. Each developed increasingly efficient improve-
ments on the basal vertebrate body plan for survival in the water.
Even the earliest sharks had a streamlined, elongate shape and a
rounded, tapered snout for cutting through the water. The blueprint
for shark fins was similar to that for the fins of the first bony fishes,
although the construction and size of shark fins differed consider-
ably. All sharks had paired pectoral and pelvic fins. Dorsal fins
numbered one or two, and in some species the dorsal fin closest to
the head was oversized and reminiscent of the signature dorsal fin
seen in modern sharks. The anal fin is not always present in fossil
sharks.
The tails of early sharks came in various shapes but most often
were heterocercal, or asymmetrical with the upper portion being
larger than the lower. The heterocercal tail design appears repeat-
edly in the fossil record of vertebrates; it begins with the jawless
fishes and continues in the acanthodians and placoderms, the
sharks, and some early ray-finned and lobe-finned fishes. In most
cases, including that of the shark, the upper part of the tail is the
stiffened end of the bony or cartilaginous vertebral column of the
fish. In sharks, the asymmetrical tail fin became a large, powerful
source of propulsion.
The task of remaining buoyant in the water is handled differently
in sharks than in bony fishes. The shark formula for success in this
regard involved two adaptations. First, the cartilaginous skeleton

itself is lighter than bone and makes it easier for the shark to remain
suspended in the water. A shark, however, is denser than water and
would sink if it didnt have another adaptation to help keep it afloat.
Sharks do not have swim bladders or lungs like bony fish; they are
unable to hold or expel gases to adjust their buoyancy as other fish
can. Instead, sharks combine the use of underwater hydrodynam-
ics and an oil-saturated liver to control buoyancy.
The pectoral fins of sharks are large and stiff, like the wings of an
airplane. The snout is round and tapered and flatter on the under-
side, similar to the fuselage of an airplane. When a shark swims, the
action of water passing across the snout and pectoral fins provides
lift. This is not unlike the aerodynamic principles that enable
airplanes to remain aloft in the air. This adaptation alone prevents
sharks from sinking, but it requires them to stay in motion. It also
prevents them from moving backward.
Another adaptation that enabled the sharks to remain buoyant
is a large, oily liver. By accumulating a large amount of low-density
oils in the liver, the relative density of a shark in relation to seawater
is nearly equalized. This allows the shark to float more easily. A
combination of large pectoral fins, large oily livers, and nearly con-
tinuous swimming is the sharks solution to buoyancy.
Sharks were some of the first vertebrates to develop teeth. Like
their modern descendants, early sharks continually replaced worn
or lost teeth. Every tooth that was exposed at the outer edge of the
jawline had a conveyor belt of new teeth growing behind it. These
new teeth cycled into place as each matured. When a new tooth
erupted through the jawline, it pushed away the outer tooth in front
of it. The teeth were composed of dentine, and they fossilized well.
Shed teeth are often the only clues available to early sharks.
Some early sharks exhibited bizarre variations on the toothreplacement adaptation. One case in point was the Permian shark
Helicoprion. Instead of having a conveyor belt of parallel replace-
ment teeth that grew beneath the surface of the jaw, it had a single
circular whorl of teeth positioned at the front of its jaw and a few
Cartilaginous Fishes: The Sharks and Rays 117
Jaws of the great white shark showing replacement teeth in place behind
outer teeth
flatter teeth inside its mouth. The spiral of teeth did not shed older
teeth but instead continued to grow outwards, adding newer and
larger teeth to the outmost surface of the whorl as the shark matured.
Specimens of this tooth whorl range in size from 10 to 18 inches
(25 to 45 cm) in diameter; they belonged to a sizeable shark that
measured up to 20 feet (6 m) long. How did this shark use such an
unusual dental battery? Despite the fact that many fossil specimens
of the tooth whorl have been found, there is still much debate about
how it was affixed to the jaw of Helicoprion and how it was used.
One possible scenario for the feeding habits of Helicoprion was
that it waved its head from side to side to snag soft-bodied squid or
mollusks as it swam among them, dragging the invertebrates into
its mouth, where the flatter, inside teeth chewed or crushed the prey
before the shark swallowed it.
In addition to teeth, sharks also had calcium in their skin in the

form of tiny, prickly scales. Like the sharks teeth, these scales were
discarded and replaced on a continual basis. Again like shed teeth,
these shed scales provide clues to the presence of ancient sharks
despite the fact that their cartilaginous parts were rarely preserved.
Another characteristic of sharks is the presence in males of
small, paired appendages on the underside near the anal opening.
These are called claspers and are used during reproduction to hold
the female tight to the male. The presence of claspers allows paleon-
tologists to distinguish the sex of fossil sharks.
Modern sharks exhibit an extraordinary suite of nerves and
senses. They have an excellent sense of smell, and their bodies
contain a network of jelly-filled canals called electroreceptors that
keep the animals attuned to their environment. One set of receptors
can detect the strength and fluctuations of electromagnetic fields,
including Earths magnetic field and fluctuations caused by ocean
currents, other animals, and objects in the ocean. Sharks use their
ability to sense magnetic fields to steer them on migratory paths.
Additional receptors, located on the top of the head and along
the length of the body, can detect vibrations in the water, such as
those made by other swimming creatures or injured animals that
might become prey. The remains of some fossil sharks provide
anatomical evidence that such olfactory and electrosensitive senses
were an early part of the evolution of these animals.
THE ORIGIN OF CARTILAGINOUS FISHES

Chondrichthyans were among the first jawed fishes. Until recently,
it was thought that these cartilaginous fishes were the last major
group of fishes to appear in the fossil record. Evidence for the pres-
ence of early sharks, however, is complicated by the fact that there
is a natural bias against the preservation of cartilage. The best evi-
dence of these fishes early existence comes from fossilized scales
from the Late Ordovician Epoch, 455 million years ago. The earliest
records of shark teeth are found in sediments of Early Devonian
age, 418 million years ago. This makes the earliest chondrichthyans
contemporaries of the armored jawless fishes and the most primi-
tive jawed fishes (acanthodians and placoderms) and predates the
rise of bony fishes by about 10 million to 15 million years.
In 2003, a team of Canadian and Australian paleontologists led
by Randall Miller of the New Brunswick Museum announced the
recovery of the earliest known articulated shark remains. Found in
New Brunswick, Canada, and dating from about 409 million years
ago, the shark specimen contained a jaw with two rows of teeth
lodged in place. It also included one of the oldest known braincases
of a chondrichthyan and preserved the presence of paired pectoral
fin spines, a feature not previously observed in cartilaginous fishes.
The shark measured about 20 to 30 inches (50 to 75 cm) long, about
the size of a river salmon. This Canadian specimen predated other
previously known fossil sharks by 15 million years.
Even such an important new specimen as this cannot fill many
gaps in the evolutionary history of early sharks, however. In some
ways, the name of this specimen says it all. Originally described
in 1892 on the evidence of a single tooth, it was called Doliodus
problematicus, a problematic deceiver. As this name implies, pale-
ontologists have a long way to go before the ancestry of the earliest
sharks is better understood.
Most groups of sharks and other cartilaginous fishes of the early
Paleozoic bore little resemblance to modern-day forms. It was not
until the end of the Paleozoic Era that the line of modern sharks
and rays was established, in the group known as the Neoselachii.
The Neolselachii were a family of sharks derived from the earlier
Elasmobranchii.
SHARKS, RAYS, AND SKATES:

THE ELASMOBRANCHS
This group of chondrichthyans is unified by a number of shared
characteristics that include paired nasal cavities, three-cusp teeth
that are not rooted, five to seven pairs of gills with exposed slits,
a heterocercal tail fin, and well-developed senses. The early sharks

were otherwise surprisingly diverse in size and design. The larg-
est members of this group became the top predators of the Late
Paleozoic oceans. Some species lived in freshwater. Many sharks
had unexpectedly bizarre spines, dorsal appendages, and teeththe
source of much puzzlement for paleontologists.
Sharks were the only members of the Elasmobranchii to appear
in the Paleozoic Era. The earliest skates, rays, and sawfishes are
found in rocks dating from the Late Jurassic Epoch of the Meso-
zoic Era.
The following are representative sharks from the Paleozoic:
Cladoselache. One of the best known of the early sharks, Clado
selache is found in Late Devonian sediments in Ohio. It was from 3.5
to 6 feet (1 to 1.8 m) long and had a rounded, streamlined body remi-
niscent of modern sharks. Cladoselache differed from later sharks in
that it lacked an anal fin, had two closely spaced dorsal fins around
the midpoint of the back, and had one bladelike spine that projected
from the leading edge of each dorsal fin. The tail was heterocercal
and strongly forked. Cladoselaches large, paddlelike pectoral fins
were stiffened by cartilage. Except for some calcified scales around
its large eyes and the margin of the tail, the skin of Cladoselache was
smooth and uncharacteristic of later sharks, which have sandpaper-
like skin on much of their body. Cladoselache had five to seven gill
slits. Although Cladoselache superficially resembled modern sharks,
the placement and structure of the paired fins, the smaller size
and placement of the dorsal fins, the lack of an anal fin, and a tail
that was more evenly forked than that of modern sharks reveal the
primitive features of Cladoselache.
Denaea. Like Cladoselache, this early shark from the Late Devo-
nian had a profile similar to that of modern sharks. It was between
1 and 3.5 feet (0.3 to 1 m) long. Unlike Cladoselache, Denaea had
but one dorsal fin, and that fin did not have an associated bony
spine. The pectoral fins of Denaea were large and stiff and had a
backward-pointing, whiplike extension, the purpose of which is
unknown. The pelvic fins were much larger than in Cladoselache.

The skull was long; the eyes were oversized in comparison with
those of later sharks, and the snout protruded to form a distinctive,
streamlined anterior point. The tail fin was large, stiff, forked, and
heterocercal.
Falcatus. Dating from the Carboniferous, Falcatus is known
among early sharks for having several unusually exaggerated fea-
tures. It was a small shark that measured only about 6 inches (15 cm)
long. Its heterocercal tail was strongly forked and tall, its paired pec-
toral and pelvic fins were uncharacteristically small, and the profile
of its head was strongly triangular, with a jutting snout. Most curi-
ous was an adaptation of the first dorsal fin into a long, protruding
shoulder spine that hung over the head like a stanchion for a street
light. This fin and the top of the creatures head were covered with
small, denticlelike scales. Many specimens of this shark have been
found in Montana, and it is clear from the fossil record that females
(lacking claspers) did not have this unusual dorsal fin. The dorsal
fin was probably for display purposes in courting a mate.
Stethacanthus and Akmonistion. These sharks from the Late
Devonian to Late Carboniferous have been found in Scotland,
Illinois, Iowa, Montana, and Ohio. Stethacanthus and Akmonistion
were small; they ranged from about 10 inches to 4 feet (254 cm to
1.2 m) long. Both animals were adorned with a unique outgrowth
of the dorsal fin, the shape of which has been described as that of a
large, rounded shaving brush mounted on an anvil. The upper sur-
face was covered with toothlike denticles as was a matching patch
on the animals brow. The base of this appendage was embedded
just above the shoulder area and was composed of calcified carti-
lage strands. The foot of the base was connected to a hard spine
made of dentine. Only male specimens had this extravagant dorsal
appendage, suggesting that it was related to courtship and sexual
display.
Helicoprion. Found in Early Permian deposits in Russia, North
America, Japan, and Australia, Helicoprion was part of a radiation
The shark Helicoprion had a disc-like whorl of teeth affixed to its lower jaw.
of Late Paleozoic sharks with unusual dental batteries. Its adapta-

tion for tooth replacement included a spiral-shaped tooth assem-
bly fitted between the two lower jaws. Unlike other families of
sharks that shed older teeth, Helicoprion and its kin retained
their older, smaller teeth as a part of the tooth whorl. The tooth
whorl ranged in size from about the diameter of a dinner plate in
average-sized specimens to as large as three feet (1 m) in diameter
in the largest known examples. These teeth of Helicoprion prob-
ably worked in conjunction with a flat, bony grinding surface in
the upper jaw. How this shark used the tooth whorl is not entirely
understood. One view is that Helicoprion swung its head back and
forth to hook passing soft-bodied squid and other invertebrates
in its path. Once in the mouth, the prey could have been crushed
and chewed between the tooth whorl and the grinding surface in
the upper jaw.
The shark Edestus had unusual dentition, which consisted of two jaw
bones that protruded straight out of its mouth.
Edestus. Another puzzling shark is Edestus, from the Carbonif-

erous of the United States. Edestus was a large shark; it measured
about 20 feet (6 m) long. This great size made it one of the largest
predators of its time. Edestuss unusual dentition consisted of two
tooth-bearing elements that protruded straight out of the sharks
mouth at the symphysis, in front of its face. Each element had up
to 10 teeth lined up in a row along the jawline. This spectacular jaw
could have been used to snap at prey or perhaps snag them with
glancing blows as this large shark swam through their midst.
Belantsea. Dating from the Early Carboniferous Epoch of
Montana, Belantsea was a member of a specialized group of car-
tilaginous fishes that were unlike the traditional image of a shark.
THINK ABOUT IT
andrzejP.KarpinskyandthePuzzle
ofthetoothWhorl
Paleozoic fossil fishes are rarely found fully inscribed in rocks, yet even
the most fragmentary specimen often yields obvious clues to the nature
of the creature that left it behind. Fish scales, tails, fins, skulls, and vertebrae, even when found in isolation from other skeletal parts, can still
reveal much about the size, anatomy, and lifestyle of the associated fish.
Every once in a while, however, a fossil appears that tests the know-how
of even the most meticulous and imaginative paleontologist. Such was
the case of Helicoprion, a fossil shark from the Early Permian.
The first described specimen of Helicoprion was discovered in the
Ural Mountains of Russia in 1898 and described in 1899 by paleontologist
Andrzej P. Karpinsky (18471936), the director of the Imperial Russian
Geological Survey. The specimen consisted of a single, spiral-like structure that, on closer inspection, proved to be a whorl of sharklike teeth.
There were 156 teeth in the whorl, which measured about 10 inches (24
cm) in diameter. The teeth were largest on the outside of the spiral and
diminished in size toward the center of the spiral. Unlike the teeth of
other sharks, these teeth were not shed and appeared to be permanently
embedded in a spiraling ribbon of bone. Despite having nothing but the
tooth whorl to go by, Karpinsky immersed himself in the task of deciphering the mystery of this fossil. He named the shark Helicoprion, meaning
spiral saw, and wrote a 110-page paper describing the historical, geological, chemical, histological, and biological aspects of this fossil and its
relationship to other sharks. The only things he was at a loss to explain
were how the teeth had been attached to the shark and how the shark
had used them. Karpinsky offered some ideas in the form of sketches
that variously placed the tooth whorl in such unlikely places as the tail,
the lower jaw, and as an upward spiraling extension of the upper jaw, like
the nose of an elephant.
Karpinsky was a respected scientist, yet his fellow researchers
could not resist jumping into the Helicoprion guessing game. In 1900,
Karpinsky and others suggested many unusual solutions to the tooth

whorl mystery.
the American Edwin T. Newton favored a dorsal fin location for the
whorl, making it a means of defense. The debate continued long after
Karpinskys death in 1936. In 1952, Russian paleontologist Dimitri Obruchev suggested that the tooth whorl would have been an obstruction
in the lower jaw; he favored a location in the upper jaw, where it could
have served as a defense mechanism. In 1962, another American, Theodore H. Eaton Jr., suggested that both the upper and lower jaws were
equipped with a tooth whorl.
By the 1990s, many specimens of the Helicoprion tooth whorl had been
discovered in widely dispersed Permian deposits in Russia, Spitsbergen,
(continues)
(continued)
Japan, Australia, the Canadian Arctic, British Columbia, Idaho, California,
and Nevada. The largest specimens measure more than three feet (1 m)
in diameter, suggesting that they belonged to a large shark that may have
measured as long as 20 feet (6 m).
Although significant remains of the rest of the body of Helicoprion are
yet to be discovered, the Danish paleontologist Svend E. Bendix-Almgreen
recovered fragments of the skull along with a tooth whorl in 1966. These
fragmentsthe best clues that we have to the position and utility of the
mysterious spiral sawplace the tooth whorl at the front of the bottom
jaw. Unlike Karpinsky, who imagined an elephantlike, scrolling jaw, BendixAlmgreen pictured the tooth whorl as a kind of buzz saw fixed within
the mouth and used to snag soft-bodied prey suspended in the water.
The upper jaw appears to have been equipped only with a grinding tooth
surface against which the tooth whorl could pulverize whatever food it
had snagged.

Belantsea had a tall and bulbous body with a short head and large
eyes. The fish was not a rapid swimmer; instead, it was adapted to
eating hard-bodied shelled creatures that it might find on the sea-
floor or on reefs. Belantsea measured about 3.5 feet (1 m) long. It
had armor plating around its mouth and a small number of broad,
flattened teeth in its upper and lower jaws. These teeth acted as
grinding surfaces on which to crunch hard food such as mollusks.
Belantseas fins were frill-like or petal-like, and the tail was greatly
reduced. Belantsea was probably most comfortable hovering over
the seabed as it picked up shelled creatures with its jaws.
Hybodus. Hybodus first arose during the Carboniferous Period. It
and its kin continued to diversify and spread well into the Mesozoic
Belantsea was a tall and bulbous shark with a short head and large eyes.
oceans, where hybodont-related sharks were among the most plen-

tiful and dominant predators in areas now in North America and
Europe. Descendants of the hybodonts were still in existence dur-
ing the Late Cretaceous Epoch and lived alongside modern sharks.
Hybodus itself had a long body with an unevenly forked, heterocer-
cal tail and relatively small fins. The front of each dorsal fin was
composed of a long, sharp spine. Hybodus was about 6.5 feet (2 m)
long and had two types of teeth: pointed, conical teeth in the front
of its jaw and blunt, grinding teeth in the back. The arrangement
of the teeth suggests that Hybodus would snag prey with its front
teeth and then chew it inside the mouth with the blunt teeth. These
teeth allowed this shark to have a varied diet that consisted of fish,
crustaceans, and bottom-dwelling shelled creatures. Some species of
Hybodus have been found in freshwater deposits.
Xenacanthus. This eel-like shark dates from the Early Permian of
Europe. It was one of the only Paleozoic sharks that lived exclusively
Model of the Carboniferous shark Hybodus. It had two types of teeth:

pointed, conical teeth in the front of its jaw and blunt, grinding teeth in
the back.
in freshwater habitats. The shark is named Xenacanthus after the

strange spine attached to the top of its heada spine that looks
like an automobile antenna. Xenacanthus was generally a small fish,
about 2.5 feet (75 cm) long, but some of its kin reached lengths of
7 feet (2.1 m). Its body was elongate and tapered back to the tip of
its tail. It had a long, single dorsal fin fashioned as a frill along the
entire length of the back. Xenacanthus probably wriggled its body
back and forth to propel itself forward. Each of Xenacanthuss teeth
had a crown consisting of two sharp, conical points. The upper and
lower jaws were lined with these small teeth and must have allowed
Xenacanthus to bite down with a firm grip on its wriggling fresh-
water prey. The paired fins of this shark were small. The long and
low profile of Xenacanthus was well adapted for slinking through
overgrown lake and rivers, not unlike a large newt.
The eel-like shark Xenacanthus dates from the Early Permian of Europe.
CHIMaeRAS AND OTHER HOLOCEPHALIANS

The Holocephali is a subclass of cartilaginous fishes that first
appeared in the Late Devonian. The only surviving descendants
of the holocephalians are the chimaeras or ratfishes. Extinct forms
include members of two known groups, the Iniopterygiformes and
Chondrenchelyiformes. All date from the Late Devonian and spread
during the Carboniferous. It is assumed that most lived in deep
waters, like their remaining descendants.
The bizarre-looking holocephalians developed several different
body plans but shared the following characteristics: gill slits cov-
ered by a single, protective bony plate; lack of scales or body armor;
large eyes for seeing at great depths; pelvic claspers used by males
to hold females during mating; and an upper jaw that was fused
to the cranium coupled with upper and lower broad, fused, dental
pavements instead of individual teeth. The biting surface was ideal

for crushing the hard parts of shelled creatures. In addition, unlike
in elasmobranch sharks, the cartilage forming the upper jaw of
holocephalians was fused to the braincase, locking the upper jaw
in place without the ability to flex or protrude. This adaptation
reinforced the jaws and assisted holocephalians in crunching down
on their hard-bodied prey. The structure of the skull was also the
source of the name Holocephali, which is Greek for whole head.
Sibyrhynchus. This taxon and other examples of iniopterygians
(a name meaning neck fin) date from the Late Carboniferous of
the United States. These most unusual-looking creatures resembled
bug-eyed underwater bats, with fins like flying fish and spines jut-
ting out from the pectoral region just behind the gills. Sibyrhynchus
and other iniopterygians were small, about 18 inches (45 cm) long.
Sibyrhynchuss tail was rounded, and the front of the winglike pec-
toral fins were studded with toothlike denticles.
Iniopteryx. Found in Late Carboniferous deposits of Indiana
and Nebraska, Iniopteryx, like Sibyrhynchus, was an iniopteryg-
ian with a suite of oddball anatomical features. From a top down
view, Iniopteryx resembled a wide-bodied airplane. Its pectoral fins
were disproportionately long and flexible. Inside the pectoral fins
was a supporting structure of fine cartilaginous rays. The anterior
edges of these underwater wings were arrayed with several rows
of small, pointed denticles. Iniopteryx usually measured less than
12 inches (30 cm) long. There is speculation that Iniopteryx and
its iniopterygian kin may have been able to glide briefly above the
water like modern-day flying fish, to which the iniopterygians are
no relation.
Helodus. This member of the Chondrenchelyiformes, or extinct
chimaerans, dates from the Carboniferous Period and is found in
freshwater sediments in Europe. Helodus is something of a mo-
saic of antique shark features: It had the fins, head, and jaws of a
chimaeran but the small teeth and heterocercal tail of other carti-
laginous fish. Helodus had a more general sharklike profile than did
Iniopterygians (neck fin) date from the Late Devonian and had a bizarre
suite of anatomical shapes and features underscored by a pair of long
pectoral fins positioned high on the neck.
later chimaerans from the Mesozoic Era, which more closely resem-
ble modern-day forms of sharks. Helodus measured about 1.5 feet
(45 cm) long. Like other chondrenchelyiforms, it had moderately
large pectoral fins that were placed more toward the lower side of
the animal. This is unlike the iniopterygians, the pectorals of which
were oversized and placed higher up on the side of the body.
Deltoptychius. This Carboniferous chondrenchelyiform from
Ireland and Scotland had the more ratfishlike features associated
with later chimaerans from the Mesozoic. These included large eyes,
pointed tails, a small skull with a pointed snout, large pectoral fins,
and a set of tooth plates, rather than individual teeth, for grinding
hard food. Measuring about 18 inches (45 cm) long, Deltoptychius
was probably a dweller of the seafloor, where its large eyes could help
it see in the dim light. It had a large dorsal fin with a tall spine at
its base, which suggests that this early line of chimaerans may have
been equipped with a poison-tipped spike like some extant species.
LIVING IN THE PAST

Sharks and other cartilaginous fishes have a history going back
to the Late Ordovician Epoch, more than 443 million years ago.
Although early cartilaginous fishes from the Paleozoic differed sig-
nificantly from extant species, members of the two main branches
of the chondrichthyansthe Elasmobranchii and the Holocephali
survive to this day.
If longevity is a measure of success in the fossil record, sharks
and their kin must rank as some of the most successful lines of
organisms in the history of the planet. Yet the history of sharks in
particular is not one of continual domination of the seas.
The first great radiation of sharks occurred during the Paleo-
zoic Era and peaked during the Devonian, when sharks were the
top predators of the sea. Their numbers declined toward the end
of the Paleozoic, supplanted first, it seems, by the rapid spread and
diversification of bony fishes that continued into the Mesozoic Era.
The Mesozoic was the age of reptiles: Dinosaurs ruled the land, and
marine reptiles such as the plesiosaurs, mosasaurs, and dophinlike
ichthyosaurs spread throughout the seas in large numbers. Modern
sharks, the neoselachians, first appeared in the latest part of the
Paleozoic, but their numbers were relatively low for another 75 mil-
lion years. Their multiplication was perhaps constrained by their
having to share an overly competitive ocean with large numbers of
marine reptiles and bony fishes.
During the Jurassic and Cretaceous Periods, however, sharks
diversified once again. They grew in numbers and kinds and rees-
tablished themselves as predators of note in the prehistoric seas. One
reason for their resurgence was suggested by paleontologists Detlev
Thies and Wolf-Ernst Reif in 1985. In Thies and Reifs scenario, the
revitalized diversification of sharks in the Jurassic Period was an
opportunistic response to the availability of increasingly abundant
food in the form of bony fishes. Sharks of all kinds became more
numerous and occupied many different kinds of habitats, including
lagoonal, intercoastal, and open ocean environments. This radia-
tion was so successful that sharks exhibiting the characteristics of
modern faunas were firmly established by the Early Cretaceous
Epoch.
The other important groups of fishes that rose to fill the Paleo-
zoic seas were the Osteichthyans, or bony fishes. The bony fishes
eventually became the most plentiful vertebrates of all.
SUMMARY
This chapter traced the Paleozoic evolution of sharks and their kin.

1. The Chondrichthyes, or cartilaginous fishes, including
sharks, were some of the first vertebrates with jaws and bony
teeth.
2. The chondrichthyans are divided into two groups, the Elas-
mobranchii (plated gills), consisting of sharks, dogfishes,
skates, and rays, and the Holocephali (whole head).
3. Even the earliest sharks had the blueprint for shark anatomy.
This included a streamlined, elongate shape with a rounded,
a tapered snout for cutting through the water and fins that
were similar in configuration to those of the first bony fishes,
although the construction and size of shark fins differed
considerably.
4. Sharks have self-replacing teeth; some early taxa, such as
Helicoprion, developed uniquely complex adaptations for this
replacement, including spiral-like tooth whorls.
5. The best evidence of the earliest sharks comes from fossil-
ized scales from the Late Ordovician Epoch, 455 million
years ago.
6. The earliest articulated shark remains are from New Bruns-
wick, Canada, from about 409 million years ago.
7. Sharks were the only members of the Elasmobranchii to
appear in the Paleozoic Era. The earliest skates, rays, and
sawfishes are found in rocks that date from the Late Jurassic
Epoch of the Mesozoic Era.
8.The only surviving descendants of the holocephalians are the
chimaeras or ratfishes. Extinct forms include members of two
known groups, the Iniopterygiformes and Chondrenchelyi-
formes. All date from the Late Devonian and spread during
the Carboniferous Period.
9.Modern sharks, the neoselachians, first appeared in the Late
Paleozoic but did not gain a dominant position as ocean
predators until the Jurassic and Cretaceous Periods.
8
BONY FISHES
The most numerous members of the jawed vertebrates are the
Osteichythes, or bony fishes. This is the last major group of fishes
to appear in the fossil record and accounts for more than half of
the living groups of vertebrates on land or sea. The osteichthyans
date from the Late Silurian. They arose during the heyday of the
acanthodians and placoderms but by the Carboniferous Period sup-
planted them as one of two groups of dominant marine vertebrates.
The other new dominant group was that of the cartilaginous sharks
and rays. This chapter describes the anatomical characteristics of
the bony fishes and introduces prominent groups of these fishes that
thrived during the Paleozoic Period.
TRAITS Of BONy fISHES

As their name implies, the osteichthyans were the first fishes with
an endoskeleton composed of apatite bone instead of cartilage.
Their scales were also composed of bony material such as dentine
and enamel. The bony fishes are divided into two clades based on
the design of their fin structure. The Actinopterygii, or ray fins,
have fins supported by a fanlike bony or cartilaginous architecture.
The Sarcopterygii, or lobe fins, have fleshy fins composed of a
core of articulated bones to which muscles and smaller, radiating
bones are affixed.
Unlike the successful ray-finned fishes, the lobe-fins are nearly
extinct. Less than a dozen species of lobe-finned fishes, mostly lung-
fishes, are still alive today. Among these extant lobe-finned fishes,
however, is the fascinating Coelacanth, a living fossil that has re-
mained virtually unchanged since Paleozoic timesan evolutionary
135
Two types of early bony fish fins: (a) ray-finned with bony rays leading out
from a bony base; and (b) fleshy or lobe fins in which bony rays emanate
from bones running along the axis of the fin.
success story if there ever was one. The importance of the lobef inned fishes to the evolution of terrestrial vertebrates is also signifi-
cant because it was the lobe-finned fishes lineage that gave rise to
the first limbed animalsthe tetrapods.
In addition to having a bony endoskeleton and scales, all bony
fishes share several other anatomical features. The skull is well
formed and heavily armored. Even the gills are protected by a bony
flap, unlike the exposed gill slits of the sharks. The teeth are fixed
solidly to the jawbones and become increasingly well developed and
sharp when compared to those of the acanthodians and placoderms.
Early bony fishes also had a pair of air sacks in the lower abdomen
that were used to control the fishes buoyancy.
THE ORIGIN OF BONY FISHES

The appearance of fishes with bony endoskeletons occurred quite
suddenly in the fossil record, at least by geologic standards. Bone
had appeared earlier, in the agnathans, as an outer covering of the
cartilaginous skull and back. At about the same time, in the Early
Bony Fishes 137
Devonian Epoch, actinopterygian fishes with completely bony skel-

etons first appeared. Only recently has fossil evidence emerged for
an evolutionary stage that bridges the gap from the cartilaginous
jawless fishes to the bony fishes.
What is arguably the earliest known bony fish comes from Late
Silurian and Early Devonian strata (410 million to 400 million years
ago) of China and Vietnam. This fish, Psarolepis, is known from sev-
eral partial specimens and was at first thought to be a basal member
of the lobe-finned fishes. Additional specimens studied by Chinese
paleontologist Min Zhu and his colleagues in 1999 suggested that
Psarolepis was a basal ancestor to both the ray-finned fishes and
lobe-finned fishes. The head elements of the fish are the best pre-
served parts of the available specimens and show a combination of
actinopterygian and sarcopterygian features. These features include
teeth like those of the lobe-finned fishes and cheekbones like those
of the ray-finned fishes. Curiously, Psarolepis also had some affini-
ties with basal jawed fishes such as placoderms, including paired
fins and large dorsal and pectoral spines unlike any that have been
seen in ray-finned or lobe-finned fishes. This remarkable conver-
gence of features associated with jawless as well as jawed fishes
makes Psarolepis one of the best candidates for a line of primitive
bony fishes that was ancestral to bony fishes that followed.
The discovery in Australia in 2001 of a 400 million-year-old fos-
silized braincase from a fish named Onychodus reinforced the idea
that the ancestors of bony fishes may have combined features of
early sarcopterygians and actinopterygians with primitive features
previously restricted to nonbony fishes. This suggests that the evo-
lution of early bony fishes may have involved many parallel develop-
ments in ray-finned and lobe-finned fishes.
RAY-FINNED FISHES
There are more than 25,000 living species of ray-finned fishes. They
are found in freshwater and saltwater habitats. Their origins in the
Paleozoic were marked by rapid diversification until, by the Triassic
Period, they were already the most abundant vertebrate of the seas.
This success came at the expense of other, lesser sophisticated
fishes, particularly the lobe-finned fishes. The lobe-fins gradually
dwindled in numbers during the Mesozoic Era as the ray-finned
fishes spread.
Classifying the early ray-finned fishes of the Paleozoic has been
a challenge for scientists because these fishes roots are not entirely
understood. As a result, many varied species of early actinopteryg-
ians were at one time collectively grouped within the palaeoniscids
(ancient swimmer), a catch-all category that was paraphyletica
word used to describe a group of organisms that evolved from a
common ancestor but that does not include all the descendants of
that ancestor.
Another approach to classifying early ray-finned fishes is to
assign them to related groups according to the sequence of their
appearance in the fossil record. Using this method, three successive
radiations of fishes are recognized:
Basal Actinopterygians. This radiation spans the time from the
Carboniferous Period to the Triassic Period. It includes the Paleo-
zoic bony fishes discussed in The First Vertebrates. This group is
synonymous with fossil fishes once grouped as the chondrosteans.
Neopterygians. This radiation spans the time from the Triassic
Period to the Jurassic Period and has its roots in the Late Perm-
ian. The neopterygian (new fins) radiation includes fishes once
grouped within the paraphyletic category of holosteans. This means,
therefore, that this radiation includes some but not all descendants
of an inferred common ancestor, which does not provide a firm
basis for classification.
Teleosts. This radiation spans the time from the Jurassic Period
to the present. The teleosts are the most abundant fish species living
today; nearly all modern fishes are teleosts.
Traits of Ray-Finned Fishes

The early actinopterygians of the Paleozoic were generally small.
Although some taxa were larger, most ranged in size from 2 to
Bony Fishes 139
8 inches (5 to 20 cm) long. They had short snouts and the large
eyes characteristic of active predators. Unlike the thick and stiff-
ened fins found in sharks, the fins of the actinopterygians were
flexible, lightweight, and thin. This gave these fishes increased
maneuverability.
The ray-finned fishes adopted the successful arrangement of fins
seen in the acanthodians and placoderms and that is still seen in
most modern fishes. They had pairs of pectoral and pelvic fins, one
or two dorsal fins, and an anal fin on the ventral side, just before the
tail. The tail, although found in various shapes, was strongly forked
and arranged in a vertical configuration. It was flapped from side to
side to power the fish. The way the tail was forked is a differentia-
tion trait between the early actinopterygians and later fishes. The
top fork was a bony spine to which a fin membrane was attached
to form the lower fork. The lower part of the fork was a lightweight
fin reinforced with bony rods. It reminds one of a sail attached to
a mast.
The thick, armored scales of basal ray finned-fishes were com-
posed of several bony layers, including dentine topped with a
shiny enamel. In some species, such as Cheirolepis and Moythoma
sia, the scales overlapped and were locked together by a peg and
socket design for articulation as the animal flexed. The scales were
arranged in long, vertically oriented or diagonal rows. Despite the
armored natures of the scales, the dermal covering was light enough
not to impede these rapidly swimming predators.
The jaws of Paleozoic ray-finned fishes underwent two distinct
evolutionary phases. The earliest actinopterygians had small but
strong jaws for snapping at prey. The top jaw was fixed to the skull,
and the lower jaw was hinged to open and shut against the upper
jaw. This gave the fish a kind of long, grinning jaw that operated
like the jaw of a ventriloquists dummy. These fishes relied on
powerful jaw muscles and a quick snap of the lower jaw to snag
their prey.
By the Late Permian Epoch, with the rise of the neopterygians,
the jaws of the ray-finned fishes took a dramatic turn. The top jaw
was no longer fixed in place but had a loose-fitting hinge. As the

bottom jaw opened, the top jaw drew downward and forward.
This gave the fish a rounder mouth and a sucking action to draw
the prey into the mouth cavity before the fish bit it. The loosened
connections of the jaw also encouraged the evolution of stronger
muscles; this gave the neopterygians a potentially stronger bite.
Other improvements seen in neopterygians included lighter scales
and increasingly powerful and streamlined fins and tails.
The body plans of different families of actinopterygians var-
ied widely and are best discussed while discussing representative
species.
Basal Actinopterygians
Early actinopterygians had limited range in the oceans of the Late
Paleozoic; they were outnumbered by lobe-finned fishes and later
by more advanced ray-finned fishes, beginning with the neopte-
rygians. The early actinopterygians were, however, the most diverse
freshwater fishes of that time.
The only living relatives of the basal actinopterygians are the
heavily armored bichirs, found in equatorial Africa; the long-bodied
sturgeons, known as a source of caviar and found in freshwater river
systems, lakes, and coastal waters of Asia, Russia, Central Asia,
Europe, and North America; and paddlefishes, large, freshwater
fishes that have a large mouth and a peculiar paddle-shaped snout
and that are found in the southern United States.
Following is a guide to some of the best known species of basal
actinopterygians of the Paleozoic Era.
Cheirolepis. Cheirolepis, found in Middle Devonian rocks of what
today is Scotland, was an early form of ray-finned fish. Its body was
long and thin and measured up to 22 inches (55 cm) long. Cheiro
lepis was equipped with a strong tail and large pectoral and pelvic
fins; this design made it a fine swimmer. The downward-turning
tail had a sharp row of scales on its dorsal edge to help the fish
cut through the water more quickly. Cheirolepiss scales were small
Bony Fishes 141
and rectangular and were arranged in diagonal rows. The skull of

Cheirolepis was boxy and composed of moveable parts; this allowed
the skull to expand dynamically as the gape of the mouth widened
to take in prey. Cheirolepis probably could swallow other fishes up to
about two-thirds its own size. Cheirolepis had many short but sharp
teeth that lined three distinct bones around the edge of the mouth:
the maxilla and premaxilla on the upper skull edge and the dentary
of the lower jaw. This arrangement of tooth-bearing jawbones is a
feature seen in most later vertebrates.
Mimia. This fish, from the Late Devonian of Australia, is similar
to Cheirolepis but slightly more derived in its features. Like Cheiro
lepis, it was a good swimmer; but Mimias tail was more forked, its
dorsal and anal fins were larger and more triangular in shape, and
the profile of the body was taller and more streamlined that that of
Cheirolepis. In addition to having teeth in the maxilla, premaxilla,
and dentary bones, Mimia also had teeth along the midline of the
roof of the mouth.
Moythomasia. This basal actinopterygian is found in Middle to
Late Devonian strata of Australia and North America. Like Cheiro
lepis, Moythomasia had an unusual coat of interlocking scales that
could bend and flex as the fish moved; this made it an agile swim-
mer. This small fish measured about 3.5 inches (9 cm) long, had the
large eyes characteristic of these early ray-finned fishes, and had a
downward-turning tail capped by a row of backward-aiming bony
nodes along its dorsal edge.
Canobius. Canobius is from the Early Carboniferous of Scotland
and measures a small 3 inches (7 cm) long. It had a body plan simi-
lar to that of Moythomasia, only smaller. It had a deeper, rounder
body, a downturned tail, and large pectoral and anal fins. Its head
was small and tapered, with extraordinarily large eyes for the size
of the skull. Inside its mouth was an experiment in jaw design. In
other fishes, the upper jawbones were attached at a slight angle to
the bony braincase above, bowing the jaws outward toward the
cheeks. In Canobius, the jawbones were attached perpendicularly,
Canobius was a tiny ray-finned fish from Scotland.
suspended vertically inside the mouth. This allowed for a little more
room in the cheeks, enabled the fish to open its mouth wider, and
allowed it to pass more water over the gills. The gills of Canobius
became greatly enlarged over those of other early ray-finned fishes.
The experimental jaw arrangement not only improved the respira-
tion and activity level of this little fish, but also allowed it to suck in
more food from the surrounding water.
Amphicentrum. First described in the 1860s, this species was
found in Carboniferous deposits of England. Amphicentrum was
about 7 inches (18 cm) long and had an unusually deep, disc-shaped
and flattened body, with a rudimentary forked tail that consisted
of an upper bony spine from which a more delicate fin flap was
dropped. In general appearance, Amphicentrum is reminiscent of
modern reef fishes such as angelfish. Its paired fins were greatly
reduced and the dorsal and anal fins modified into long, ribbonlike
strips. Its teeth were blunted rather than pointed, which suggests
that Amphicentrum may have eaten food that required crushing,
such as small, shelled invertebrates or armored fish.
Guildayichthys. First described in 2000, this early ray-finned
fish dates from the Early Carboniferous of Montana. It shares some
Bony Fishes 143
Model of the early actinopterygian Palaeoniscum
general affinities with Amphicentrum, from England. Like Amphi

centrum, Guildayichthys has a round, disclike shape to its body. The
specimens of Guildayichthys are tiny; some measure only about
2 inches (5.4 cm) long. Guildayichthys was a marine species rather
than a freshwater fish. Other distinguishing features include a tail
that is only minimally forked and robust pectoral, dorsal, and anal
fins that were most certainly capable of helping this small fish to
maneuver quickly. Guildayichthyss mouth was lined with short,
conical teeth, which made it a plucking and grazing feeder.
Palaeoniscum. One of the last of the early line of actinopter-
ygians, Palaeoniscum had a long, streamlined body shaped like a
projectile. Measuring up to 12 inches (30 cm) long, this fish was
powered by a large, deeply forked tail and guided by sharp, trian-
gular shaped dorsal, anal, and paired fins. Its mouth was long and
lined with tiny, sharp teeth. Palaeoniscum lived in freshwater envi-
ronments of England, Germany, Greenland, and the United States,
where it was one of the most successful radiations of the basal acti-
nopterygians that dominated inland lakes and streams of the world
toward the end of the Paleozoic.
Neopterygians
Following the radiation of basal actinopterygians, a new lineage
of ray-finned fishes arose in the Late Permian Epoch and became
prominent in the Mesozoic and Cenozoic Eras. Neopterygians rep-
resent a second major wave in the evolution of ray-finned fishes.
Occupying both freshwater and marine environments, neopte-
rygians were distinguished from early ray-finned fishes by major
changes to the jaws, the shape of the skull, and the tail. In neopte-
rygians, the tooth-bearing maxilla and dentary bones jutted forward
from the face and were usually lined with sharp, pointed teeth.
The neopterygian mouth had a wider, gaping orifice which, when
opened, caused the cheeks to expand sideways, sucking in more
water. The tail was no longer supported by a dorsal bony spine but
had a more evenly forked design supported by a lightweight fan of
bony rods.
The neopterygians include four main groups of fishes. The
semionotids were early neopterygians, now extinct. The lepisoste-
ids include the living species and first appeared in the Cretaceous
Period. The bowfins, or halecomorphids, arose in the Triassic
Period and have a surviving member that lives in freshwaters of
North America. Most significantly, the group of the neopterygia
is also the stem group from which modern fish, the Teleostei,
arose. The teleosts include most of the bony fish familiar to us
today.
The semionotids appeared in the Permian Period. The other
clades of neopterygians evolved after the Paleozoic. Semionotus is
the best known member of the semionotids. Members of this taxon
were small, streamlined swimmers that lived in freshwater and
marine habitats. Semionotus was about 5 inches (13 cm) long. It had
the jutting lower jaw of other neopterygians, but instead of sharp
Bony Fishes 145
Fossil of the neopterygians Semionotus
teeth, Semionotus had peglike teeth. The jaws were relatively short
compared to the jaws of other neopterygians but projected forward
from the snout. The fishs tail was forked and fanned with delicate
bony rods. On the midline of the back, between the neck and the
dorsal fin, Semionotus had a series of bony spines that enabled the
fish to cut through the water more effectively. Semionotuss dorsal

fin was almost square and pointed backward; the anal fin was long
and pointed downward. Based on the many numbers of specimens
found in some locations, it appears that Semionotus traveled in
schools of its own kind.
LOBE-FINNED FISHES
Lobe-finned fishesthe sarcopterygiansarose during the Early
Devonian Epoch and were one of the first successful groups of
bony fishes. Their numbers dwindled by the end of the Paleozoic,
with the rise of the ray-finned fishes, but not before some members
of the sarcopterygian group successfully evolved to become the
first terrestrial vertebrates. There are still many questions about
which of the lobe-finned fishes were most closely related to land
animals.
For the purpose of this discussion, lobe-finned fishes will be
placed into the following categories:
Porolepiformes: an early group of sarcopterygians, now
extinct.
Osteolepiformes: an early group of sarcopterygians, now
extinct, with ancestral roots to land animals.
Actinistia: the coelacanths, the only marine form of lobefinned fishes that survives to this day.
Dipnoi: the lungfishes, which are still represented by three
living freshwater species.
Traits of Lobe-Finned Fishes

The sarcopterygians were generally larger than their ray-finned
relatives. They ranged, on average, from 10 to 40 inches (25 to
100 cm) long with some much larger members. Some, but not all,
members of the group were largely marine creatures, which is
probably one reason why the smaller ray-finned fishes found more
success in freshwater habitats during the Paleozoic Era. Body shape
was generally long, narrow and rounded. A key distinguishing
Bony Fishes 147
f eature of all lobe-finned fishes is the placement and structure of

their fins.
Unlike the lightweight, fanned fins of ray-finned fishes, the fins
of lobe-finned fishes were distinctively muscular and hefty. Each
fin was built around an articulated core of thick bone reinforced
with muscle and radiated a skin-covered fringe of delicate rays. The
pectoral fins were the strongest of the set; this eventually led to their
adaptation as forelimbs for the terrestrial-bound members of the
lobe-finned clan.
The tails of the lobe-finned fishes varied widely from group
to group. Some showed affinities with the sharply forked tails of
ray-finned fishes, while others possessed a unique three-part fan
structure.
The Dipnoi (lungfishes) were equipped with gills for breath-
ing in the water and lungs for breathing air. The behavior of living
species of lungfishes shows us that they can adapt to air breath-
ing in times of stress, such as when their water becomes stagnant
and low on oxygen, or during times of drought, when they cannot
fully submerge. While these fish were not designed to live for long
periods outside of the water, they may have been able to survive an
extended drought by burying themselves in the mud and hibernat-
ing, as do their living, freshwater descendants in Africa. Evidence of
lungfish burrows has been discovered in sediments dating from the
Devonian Period. Some examples of such burrows dating from the
Carboniferous Period include skeletal material from these fish.
All varieties of lobe-finned fishes appear to have been aggressive
predators. Some may have been ambush predators that hovered in
murky waters and lunged at passing prey with their large mouths.
Most lobe-finned fishes had sharp teeth for grabbing and tearing
prey, but lungfishes developed an alternative that consisted of den-
tine plates for crushing instead of pointed teeth. This kind of dental
battery would have enabled the lungfish to eat hard foods such as
shelled invertebrates.
Following is a guide to some of the most important species of
lobe-finned fishes from the Paleozoic Era.
Compare the fins of lobe-finned fishes and ray-finned fishes. The fins of lobe-finned fishes
are more muscular and fanlike, which probably helped lobe-finned fishes hunt prey.
Porolepiformes
These early lobe-finned fishes existed only during the Devonian
Period; they are found in marine and estuarine deposits in Scotland
and North America. The porolepiforms had long bodies, short,
broad heads with small eyes, and several rows of teeth on the lower
jaw. Their scales varied from thick, rectangular types to larger,
rounded ones in some of the later species.
The biting power of the porolepiform jaw was improved by a
unique jointed skull. At the roof of the mouth, the skull was divided
into front and back halves by a joint. When the animal bit down on
its prey, more force was exerted by the downward-cleaving motion
of the top and front part of the jaw. This was a necessary adaptation
because the predominant prey of the porolepiforms may have been
smaller ray-finned fishes with thick, protective scales.
A characteristic member of this clade of lobe-finned fishes was
Gyroptychius, from the Middle Devonian of Scotland. Measuring
about 12 inches (30 cm) long, Gyroptychius had small eyes, a short
snout, and a long mouth. Its tail differed from those of later lobef inned fishes in that it consisted of a simple, central bony spine with
a triangular fringe on the top and bottom. The body of Gyroptychius
Bony Fishes 149
was long, and all but its pectoral fins were positioned on the rear
part of its torso.
Osteolepiformes
The osteolepiforms are the best evolutionary link between terrestrial
vertebrates. The osteolepiforms had a more efficient arrangement of
fins than the porolepiforms: The fins of the osteolepiforms were
concentrated more toward the midpoint of the long body. An early
clue to the evolution of tetrapods is also seen in the consolidation
of anterior skull bones in the osteolepiforms. In more basal lobef inned fishes and lungfishes, the bones of the snout were an unpat-
terned mosaic of many small bones. As seen in the osteolepiform
called Osteolepis, these bones began to consolidate into a pattern
seen in later vertebrates, particularly those on land. Descriptions of
two important species of osteolepiforms follow.
Osteolepis. This fish was 8 inches (20 cm) long; it is found in
the Middle Devonian strata of Antarctica, India, Iran, Latvia, and
Scotland. Osteolepis had two large, posteriorly pointed dorsal fins
and a downward pointed tail with a larger fin lobe on the underside
of a bony spine. The scales of Osteolepis were square, and there is
evidence of tiny nerve canals running throughout the fishs dermal
covering. This matrix of nerves may have been able to sense vibra-
tions in the water and alert Osteolepis to the presence of predators
or prey.
Eusthenopteron. This large lobe-finned fish is a key player in
the understanding of the origin of terrestrial vertebrates. Several
intriguing anatomical features make Eusthenopteron an excellent
intermediate in this important transition. Most importantly, the
bones of Eusthenopterons pectoral and pelvic fins include many
of the important elements that would be needed by a walking
creature, thus giving it ancestral arms and legs in the form of fins.
Although there are gaps in the fossil record between Eustheno
pteron and early land vertebrates, scientists continue to find tran-
sitional phases that illustrate the transition from fin to limb. Other
features that unite Eusthenopteron with early land animals include
the makeup of its teeth, the design of its spine, and the arrange-
ment of bones in the front of its skull. Fossils of Eusthenopteron
have been found in Late Devonian rocks of Scotland, Central Asia,
and Canada. It was a large fish that measured up to 4 feet (1.2 m)
long. Its tail consisted of three strong supports joined by two rayed
membranes. Its long dorsal fins, pelvic fins, and anal fin were
near the rear of the body; its strong pectoral fins were close to
the head.
Actinistia (Coelacanths)
The actinistians include the coelacanths, living fishes with roots
in the Middle Devonian. Some smaller, early species lived in fresh-
water habitats, but most coelacanths were large marine creatures
that measured about 3 feet (1 m) long or more. Fossil species look
virtually identical to living species. Coelacanths typically have
short, broad bodies, large, fleshy fins, a tall skull, and a short snout.
Their teeth are short and sharp. The tail is divided into a three-part
structure that consists of a short, central support on the end of the
fishs spinal column that is flanked by larger, feathery, fanlike lobes.
The living genus of coelacanth is Latimeria. It has been found in the
Indian Ocean in areas that range from Madagascar, off the coast of
The Latimeria fossil is named in honor of Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer.
Bony Fishes 151
Africa, to Indonesia. Extinct species of actinistians from the Devo-

nian Period include Dictyonosteus and Diplocercides.
Dipnoi
The lungfishes first appear in the fossil record of the Early Devonian
Epoch. Three freshwater genera survive today, in Australia, Africa,
and South America. Lungfishes have gills for breathing as well as a
set of lungs. The swim bladder, used for buoyancy in most fishes, has
been modified into a lung in the lungfishes. External nostrils, posi-
tioned low along the sides of the snout, are used by these fishes to
breathe air. Unlike some other lobe-finned fishes, lungfishes did not
have a jointed skull to improve their bite. The lungfish skull was solid,
and the teeth were replaced by dentine-covered bumpy plates on the
roof of the mouth and the lower jawbone. Among several known
species of Paleozoic lungfish are Dipterus and Griphognathus.
Dipterus. Dipterus dates from the Middle to Late Devonian of
Germany and Scotland. It was a lungfish of moderate size, measur-
ing about 14 inches (35 cm) long. Its jaws display the robust crushing
surface of dentine bumps that these fishes had instead of pointed
teeth. The tail of Dipterus was short and only moderately frilled.
The pectoral fins were long and narrow, with frills around their
bony core. The pelvic, anal, and pectoral fins of Dipterus were situ-
ated close to the rear of the body. It had thick, rounded, overlapping
scales. The endoskeleton of this fish was lighter and greatly reduced
over those of earlier lungfishes, a trend that continued in the evolu-
tion of the Dipnoi.
Griphognathus. This lungfish is found in Late Devonian sedi-
ments of Australia and Germany. Griphognathus had several
derived characteristics for a lungfish; these included a long, pointed
snout; small, toothlike denticles lining its jaws; and a longer tail
than Dipterus. Its gills were covered with muscular arches, the pur-
pose of which may have been to break off pieces of coral that it could
then grind with its small, rasping teeth.
THINK ABOUT IT
theCoelacanth:aLivingfossil
Finding a living lobe-finned fish from the 360-million-year-old Actinistia (coelacanth) taxon seems about as likely as finding a living dinosaur in South
America or a saber-toothed cat roaming central Europe. Yet that is exactly
what South African naturalist Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer (19072004)
found on the deck of a fishing trawler in 1938. Courtenay-Latimer was a
naturalist and curator with the tiny East London Museum on the east coast
of South Africa; she also was the friend of a fish expert named J.L.B. Smith
(18971968) at Rhodes University College in Grahamstown, South Africa.
Courtenay-Latimer routinely visited the docks to examine the hauls of fishing boats in search of a specimen or two for her museum. On one such
visit, on December 23, 1938, a trawlers promising load of sharks caught
her interest. As she examined the catch, Courtenay-Latimer saw something
unusual. At the bottom of the pile of dead fish, poking out just enough for
her to see, were the blue scaled fins of a large and queer looking fish.
After the mangled body was pulled out of the pile, Courtenay-Latimer knew
that she had found something truly strange. She hauled the heavy, smelly
127-pound (57 kg) fish to her museum to try to identify it. Unable to do so,
she drew a sketch of her find and sent it off with a letter to J.L.B. Smith,
a noted ichthyologist who had named many new species of fish. In the letter, Courtenay-Latimer described the fish as having heavy scales, almost
armour like, the fins resemble limbs, and are scaled right up to a fringe of
filament. The spinous dorsal, has tiny white spines down each filament.
Smith did not receive Courtenay-Latimers letter until after the Christmas holiday, but he was quick to reply with a cable message in which
he declared, MOST IMPORTANT PRESERVE SKELETON AND GILLS.
He later said, My surprise would have been little greater if I had seen a
dinosaur walking down the street. By the time Smith replied, the inside
organs of the fish had unfortunately been discarded; but the skin and
skeleton remained in safekeeping until Smith arrived on February 16,
1939, to examine the fish. He knew from Courtenay-Latimers sketch that
she may have made the catch of the century, and he wasnt disappointed
bonyfishes 153
when he saw the specimen in person. Smith announced to the world that
the coelacanth, once believed to have been extinct since the days of the
dinosaurs, was indeed alive and well and living off the coast of Africa.
Though it was difficult to believe so incredible a thing, said Smith, I
identified the fish as a coelacanth and named it Latimeria in appreciation
of what Miss Courtenay-Latimer had done.
First described in 1836 by Louis Agassiz, a Swiss naturalist (18071873),
the coelacanth was known only from its fossils until this surprising catch
in 1938. Although Smith hailed from a small college and Courtenay-Latimer,
from a tiny, underfunded museum, the two knew an opportunity when they
saw one. Determined to find additional specimens, Smith put out a request
to local fishermen in the form of a wanted poster. Look carefully at this
fish, declared the poster. It may bring you good fortune. Note the peculiar
double tail, and the fins. . . . If you have the good fortune to catch or find
one DO NOT CUT OR CLEAN IT IN ANY WAY but get it whole at once to a
cold storage . . . On the poster, Smith provided his address and offered a
tidy sum of money for new specimens. Smiths efforts did not pay off until
1952, when a second specimen was caught. Since that time, more than 200
specimens have been caught in the Comoros Islands region of the Indian
Ocean; and another population of Latimeria has been discovered in Indonesia, where the fish have been videotaped in their own habitat for the first
time. The 1938 specimen is mounted and still resides in the East London
Museum, where Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer once worked as curator.
The biology of Latimeria tells us much about the living habits of this
ancient line of lobe-finned fishes. It is a large fish that measures up to
6 feet (1.8 m) long and weighs a robust 215 pounds (98 kg). Living species
dwell at great depths that range from about 490 to 2,200 feet (150 to
700 m); some groups of coelacanths have been observed living in underwater caves at depths that average 650 feet (200 m). It is thought that
these fish live to be 30 or 40 years old. Female Latimeria are larger than
males. Based on the examination of the stomach contents of caught
(continues)
(continued)
specimens, Latimeria feeds primarily on fishes and soft-bodied invertebrates.
Lantern fish, cardinal fish, eels, and even squid and octopus have been
found in the stomachs of caught specimens. Latimeria is a drift feeder; it
lurks with its head tipped downward, waiting for prey to swim by. It grabs
prey with a quick movement of its jaws, grasps the hapless animal with its
sharp, pointed teeth, and quickly gulps the victim down whole.
It was once thought that the coelacanths were closely related to the
first land vertebrates (tetrapods). The discovery of Latimeria brought hope
that the living coelacanth would provide direct information about the evolutionary transition from fish to tetrapods. The link between coelacanths and
tetrapods has not turned out to be so close, however, given the anatomical
and genetic differences that have been confirmed through close study of
the living fish. Latimeria has no functional lungs, no internal nostrils, and no
upper jawbones like those in tetrapods. These differences place the fish further down the evolutionary line of animals that led directly to land animals.
The diminishment of the coelacanths link to land animals does nothing, however, to diminish what is perhaps an even more puzzling mystery:
How did such a primitive group of fish remain virtually unchanged for
more than 70 million years?
vERTEBRATES EvOlvING
IN TWO dIRECTIONS
The bony fishes occupy an unusual position in the history of life.
By the end of the Paleozoic, these increasingly diverse creatures
had established the supremacy of vertebrates in the worlds oceans,
lakes, and streams. With the passing of the Paleozoic Era, fishes
were at the vanguard of an evolutionary trend that put vertebrates
at the top of the food chain. It was the beginning of what J. John
bonyfishes 155
Sepkoski called the time of Modern fauna and the domination of

vertebrates for the foreseeable future. Fishes with jaws, and the bony
fishes in particular, ruled the seas.
Bony fishes were also responsible for taking vertebrates in
another direction entirely, from the water to the land. The roots of
all land animals are found in the lineage of the lobe-finned fishes
that adapted to life in near-shore and freshwater environments and
eventually developed the ability to breathe, eat, reproduce, and move
about on land as effectively as they had done in the water. It was a
change that began in the oceans through small but incrementally
significant modifications in the anatomy and physiology of fishes as
they slowly extended their domain beyond the water.
SUMMARy
This chapter described the anatomical characteristics of the bony
fishes and introduced prominent groups of these fishes that thrived
during the Paleozoic Era.
1.The most numerous members of the jawed vertebrates are the
Osteichythes, or bony fishes.

2.Osteichthyans were the first fishes with an endoskeleton com-
posed of apatite bone instead of cartilage.
3.Osteichthyans are divided into two large groups: the Acti-
nopterygii, or ray fins, and the Sarcopterygii, or lobe or
fleshy fins.
4.Psarolepis, from the Late Silurian Epoch, is a fossil fish with
a mosaic of features found in both jawless and jawed fishes.
It was a basal ancestor to both the ray-finned fishes and the
lobe-finned fishes.
5.Ray-finned fishes can be grouped according to their appear-
ance in the fossil record, a reflection of the evolutionary his-
tory of the group. Early actinopterygians span the time from
the Carboniferous Period to the Triassic Period; the neo-
pterygians are rooted in the Late Permian Period but rose to
prominence from the Triassic to the Jurassic Period; and the
teleosts, an offshoot of the neopterygians, span the time from

the Jurassic Period to the present. The teleosts represent the
most abundant fish group living today.
6.The early actinopterygian fishes adopted the successful
arrangement of fins seen in the acanthodians and the placo-
derms that is still seen in most modern fishes.
7.Neopterygians improved on earlier ray-finned fishes through
major changes to the jaws, the shape of the skull, and the
tail.
8.Lobe-finned fishesthe sarcopterygiansarose during the
Early Devonian Epoch and were an early group of bony fishes.
One branch of the lobe-finned fishes included lungfishes.
9.Lobe-finned fishes, and specifically forms such as Eustheno
pteron, were ancestors of the first land vertebrates.
CONCLUSION
The story of vertebrate evolution began in the Paleozoic seas with
the development of fishes. The first fishes were defined, in great
part, by the constraints of survival in the water. Fishes were among
the first organisms to evolve a body plan optimized for effective
swimming. These adaptations were born from the escalating needs
of both predatory and prey creatures to become mobile and agile in
the water. The resulting fish body plan has been fine-tuned many
times over in the subsequent evolution of many different kinds of
fishes.
The origin and evolution of the fishes was also influenced by
fluctuating changes in Earths habitats. The Paleozoic Era is rec-
ognized as the most geologically and climatically changeable span
of the planets history. The atmosphere, oceans, and lands of the
Paleozoic went through several key formative stages. Dramatic
changes in sea level, oxygen levels, and global temperature affected
the existence of life time and time again and resulted in several
major extinction events. With each extinction came renewed oppor-
tunities for remaining species to diversify and spread into Earths
changing habitats.
The family tree of all vertebrates began with the fishes. It
branched out to terrestrial habitats by way of the lobe-finned fishes,
several taxa of which were able to breathe outside of the water. These
curious fishes, which are now considered rare and atypical members
of the community of extant fishes, spawned the rise of an entirely
new form of vertebratethe land-dwelling tetrapod.
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500
450
400
350
300
250
200
150
100
65.5
P
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Proterozoic
P
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CENOZOIC
MYa eONs eras
Precambrian
CAMBRIAN
SILURIAN
ORDOVICIAN
DEVONIAN
CARBON-
IFEROUS
PERMIAN
TRIASSIC
JURASSIC
CRETACEOUS
PALEOGENE
NEOGENE
PeriODs
Invertebrates Fishes Land Plants Amphibians Reptiles
Mammals
Dinosaurs Human
& Birds Ancestors
approximateagesofMajorGroupsofOrganisms
APPENDIX ONE:
GEOLOGIC TIME SCALE
APPENDIX TWO:
POSITIONAL TERMS
Positional terms used to describe vertebrate anatomy
159
GLOSSARY
absolute dating A technique for determining the age of a rock by
measuring the rates of decay of radioactive elements found in the
rock; also called radiometric dating.
adaptation Changes in a lineage of organisms in response to
environmental stress.
Agnatha Jawless fishes.
analogies Similar traits that arise in organisms that are not related to
one another.
anatomy Term used to describe the basic biological systems of an
animal, such as the skeletal and muscular systems.
annelids (Annelida) Animal phylum whose members have a fluid-
filled, segmented body, are worm-shaped, have a nervous system on
the underside of the body, and possess at least one pair of hairlike
bristles; annelids include worms that live on the land and in the sea,
and leeches.
anoxia Lack of oxygen; anoxia can causing suffocation; this condition
can occur in the atmosphere or in a body of water such as the ocean.
anterior Directional term indicating the head end of a vertebrate; also
known as the cranial end.
apatite One of the mineral ingredients of vertebrate bones; apatite is
composed of calcium phosphate, a building block of cellular bone.
appendicular Term used to describe limb elements of the vertebrate
body.
arthropods (Arthropoda) Animal phylum whose members have a
segmented body, body regions dedicated to specific functions, a
jointed exoskeleton, and a nervous system on the underside of the
body; arthropods include trilobites, crabs, lobsters, brine shrimp,
barnacles, insects, spiders, scorpions, and centipedes.
average global temperature The combined average of air temperatures
near the surface of land and sea.
axial Lengthwise along the axis of the body, as in the direction of
growth of the vertebrate skeleton.
160
Glossary 161
background extinction A background extinction may occur suddenly,
or it may occur slowly over a long period of time; a background
extinction usually affects only one species at a time.
Bacteria One of the three domains of living organisms; it includes
members of the kingdom Bacteriasingle-celled organisms whose
cells do not have a nucleus (prokarotes) and whose metabolism is
oxygen based.
basal At the base or earliest level of evolutionary development; a term
usually used to refer to an ancestral taxon.
benthic Term used to describe a stationary, seafloor-dwelling creature
such as a sea squirt, tunicate, or ascidian.
bias Word used to describe natural circumstances that favor
fossilization, including the population, anatomy, size, and biology and
habitat of a species.
bilateral symmetry Form of symmetry in which one side of the body
is a mirror image of the other.
Cambrian Period Period of geologic time lasting from 488 million to
542 million years ago.
carbon-14 dating A form of absolute dating based on the decay rate of
the element carbon 14, which is taken in by living organisms from the
air; once an animal dies, carbon 14 begins to decay.
cartilage A noncalcified skeletal material; also called gristle; cartilage is
the primary skeletal component of sharks and rays.
cast A type of fossil made when a body mold from an organism is
filled with another element; a cast can retain the outer shape and size
of the organism.
caudal Directional term indicating the tail end of a vertebrate; also
known as the posterior.
cellular bone Form of bone that lives and grows as tissue, has channels
for blood vessels, and is made up of calcium phosphate; cellular bone
is found in all vertebrates.
Cephalochordata Eel-like members of a subphylum of chordates that
lack skulls and backbones.
Chordata Animal phylum whose members possess a notochord, a
nerve cord that runs on top of the notochord, gill slits for breathing,
and a tail; chordates include lancelets, salps, ascidians, and larvaceans.
clade A group of related organisms that includes all the descendants of
a single common ancestor.

cladistics A way of classifying organisms by comparing their
anatomical features; categorizing organisms because of their shared
characteristics.
cladogram A diagram used to illustrate the cladistic (evolutionary)
relationships between groups of organisms.
climate The kind of weather that occurs at a particular place over time.
cnidarians (Cnidaria) Animal phylum whose members have a body
consisting of a large central chamber that receives and digests food;
includes corals, jellyfish, sea anemones, sea fans, sea pens, and the
Portuguese man-of-war.
continental drift The slow and gradual movement and transformation
of the continents due to shifting of the tectonic plates of Earths crust.
convergent evolution Term used to describe a situation in which
unrelated species each develop similar adaptations to similar
environmental conditions.
coprolite Fossilized animal feces.
core A region at the center of the Earth; the core consists of a dense,
solid inner core, at the center of the Earth, that floats within a
surrounding liquid outer core.
cranial Directional term indicating the head end of a vertebrate; also
known as the anterior.
cross-cutting The principle of cross-cutting states that any geologic
feature is younger than anything else that it cuts across.
crust The outer layer of the Earth, including both dry land and ocean
floors.
dentine The primary mineral component of teeth.
deposit feeder Marine animal that eats by extracting nutrients from
mud on the seafloor.
derived Term used to describe a trait of an organism that is a departure
from the most primitive, or basal, form.
dermal Pertaining to the skin, as in dermal armor.
developmental Pertaining to aspects of the reproduction and growth
of organisms.
distal Positional term indicating a part of the vertebrate body that is
positioned toward the outside of the body.
DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) The molecule of life, which carries
genetic instructions from parent to offspring.
domain A taxononic level of classification higher than the kingdom;
the domain was proposed in the 1970s by Carl Woese and George
Glossary 163
Fox but not widely accepted until 1996; the three domains of life
include Bacteria, Archaea, and Eukarya.
dorsal Directional term indicating the back side of a vertebrate.
ecosystem A population of all living organisms and the environment in
which they live.
enamel A crystalline covering of the crown of a tooth.
endoskeleton An internal skeleton, usually consisting of bones, such as
is found in vertebrates.
eon One of the three longest spans of geologic time; the Archean
(ancient) Eon stretched from the earlierst Earth, 4.5 billion years
ago, to 2.5 billion years ago; the Proterozoic (early life) Eon began
after the Archean and lasted from 2.5 billion to 542 million years ago;
the Phanerozoic (visible life) Eon began 542 million years ago and
still goes on.
epicenter The location on Earths surface directly above the point of
origin of an earthquake.
epoch a span of geologic time ranking below the period; the
Phanerozoic Eon is divided into three eras, 11 periods, and
34 epochs. The longest epoch is the Early Cretaceous Epoch,
spanning 46 million years; the shortest is the Pridoli Epoch (in
the Siluran Period), which spans only 2 million years. Epochs are
sometimes broken down further into smaller divisions of time
known as ages.
era A span of geologic time ranking below the eon; the Archean Eon
is divided into four eras dating from more than 4 billion years ago to
2.5 billion years ago; the Proterozoic Eon is divided into three eras
dating from about 2.5 billion years ago to 542 million years ago; the
ongoing Phanerozoic Eon is divided into three eras, the Paleozoic, the
Mesozoic, and the Cenozoic; the Paleozoic (ancient life) Era lasted
from 542 million to 251 million years ago; the Mesozoic (middle
life) Era lasted from 251 million to 65 million years ago; the
Cenozoic (recent life) Era began 65 million years ago and continues
to the present.
erosion The removal and displacement of Earths surface by the action
of running water, rain, wind, glaciers, and ice sheets.
Eukarya One of the three domains of living organisms; it includes
for kingdomsProtista, Fungi, Plantae, and Animaliaall of which
consist of multicelled organisms with a distinct cell structure whose
nucleus contains strands of DNA.

eukaryotes Living organisms in the domain Eukarya; multicelled
organisms with a distinct cell structure whose nucleus contains
strands of DNA.
evaporate To turn water into gas by heating it; sunlight evaporates
water found in oceans, lakes, and streams.
evolution The natural process that causes species to change gradually
over time; evolution is controlled by changes to the genetic codethe
DNAof organisms.
exoskeleton A skeleton that forms on the outside of the body, as in
invertebrates such as anthropods.
extant Term used to describe an organism that is living today.
extinction The irreversible elimination of an entire species of plant or
animal because the species cannot adapt effectively to changes in its
environment.
fauna Animals found in a given ecosystem.
feedback System of natural processes in which chemical exchanges
take place among seawater, the atmosphere, weathering rock, and the
metabolic activity of organisms.
forelimb One of the two front legs of a vertebrate.
fossil Any physical trace of prehistoric life.
fossilization The physical process by which the remains of an
organism become a fossil.
gene A microscopic unit on a DNA molecule that controls inherited
traits.
genetics The scientific study of DNA, genes, and inherited traits.
geologic timescale A scale for measuring time based on observations
about the layers of the Earth and how long these layers took to
accumulate.
geophysics A branch of geology that studies the composition and
structure of Earth, its atmosphere, its oceans, and its magnetic fields
based on the principles of physics.
glaciation The formation of glaciers; glacier-making activity.
global chemostat A complex, self-regulatory system by
which the ocean naturally maintains its optimum chemical
balance.
global heat budget Ratio expressing the amount of global radiation
that is absorbed or reflected by the Earth.
gnathostomes (jaw-mouthed) All vertebrates with jaws.
Glossary 165
gradualism Evolution through slow and gradual changes over a long
period of time that lead to major biological changes to a species.
greenhouse effect The trapping of reflected solar radiation by water
vapor in clouds, ozone in the lower atmosphere, and atmospheric
methane and carbon dioxide (CO2) gas.
heterocercal Term used to describe the tail of an aquatic vertebrate
that is asymmetrical and in which the upper portion is larger than the
lower portion; the upper portion is usually reinforced by a hard body
part, such as the caudal end of the backbone.
hind limb One of the two rear legs of a vertebrate.
homeostasis The natural biological stability of a living organism.
homologies Structural and behavioral traits that different species of
organisms have inherited from a common ancestor.
hybrid An offspring of two animals of different varieties, breeds, or
species, such as a mule.
igneous rock Rock that forms from the cooling of once-molten matter
from the interior of the Earth.
impact crater A crater in the crust of the Earth caused by the strike of
an extraterrestrial body such as an asteroid or meteorite.
index fossils Fossils that are widely distributed and easily recognized
but that are restricted to certain geologic strata; these qualities make
such fossils useful for dating related stratigraphic layers around the
Earth.
kingdom One of the six major hierarchical classifications of life
at a taxonomic level just under domain; the six kingdoms are
Archaebacteria, Bacteria, Protista, Fungi, Plantae, and Animalia.
long-term biological adaptation A physiological change that occurs
when an organism acclimates to long-term exposure to a new or
changing environment; long-term biological adaptations are not
passed on to offspring.
macrophagous Word used to describe a predator or scavenger, a
creature that preys on other organisms.
magma Hot, liquid rock in Earths mantle and crust; called lava when it
comes to the surface through a volcanic eruption.
magnetometer A scientific instrument that measures the strength of
Earths magnetic field.
mantle A layer of the Earth that surrounds the core and lies between
the core and the outer surface or crust.

mass extinction An extinction event that kills off more than 25 percent
of all species in a million years or less.
metabolism The ability of a living organism to get energy and
nutrients from the outside, convert outside energy and nutrients into
its own energy, release waste, and grow.
metazoans Multicelled organisms.
mineralization A process of fossilization caused by water seepage
through sediment containing the remains of an organism; over time,
minerals carried by the water replace parts of the organisms skeleton.
mold A type of fossil created when the body of an organism dissolves
away, leaving a hollow impression of an original body part in the
sedimentary rock.
molecular Consisting of molecules; pertaining to the microscopic
study of biological molecules.
molecular cladistics In the classifying of organisms, a discipline that
compares biological elements of different species at the molecular
level; this discipline includes the study of genes and DNA.
morphological Pertaining to the body form and structure of an
organism.
mutations Slight, unpredictable variations in the genetic code that
happen when organisms reproduce.
natural selection One of Charles Darwins observations regarding the
way evolution works; given the complex and changing conditions
under which life exists, those individuals with the most favorable
combination of inherited traits may survive and reproduce while
others may not.
notochord A stiff rod running along the back of an organism; found in
members of the phylum Chordata.
oceanic ridge Undersea mountain range.
onychophorans (Onychophora) Animal phylum whose members
possess 14 to 43 pairs of unjointed legs, a worm-shaped body, two
antennae, appendages forming jaws around the mouth, and two more
stubby appendages near the mouth; onychophorans include the velvet
and walking worms.
organism Any living plant, animal, bacterium, archaebacterium,
protist, or fungus.
outer core The layer of the Earth that surrounds the inner core; the
outer core is liquid and is made up largely of iron and nickel; the
inner core floats inside the outer core.
Glossary 167
paleoclimatology Study of prehistoric climates through geologic
evidence.
paleontologist A scientist who studies prehistoric life, often using
fossils.
paraphyletic Term used to describe a group of organisms that
evolved from a common ancestor but that does not include all of the
descendants of that ancestor.
period A span of geologic time ranking below the era; the Phanerozoic
Eon is divided into three eras and 11 periods, each covering a span of
millions of years; the longest of these periods, including the three in
the Mesozoic Era, are sometimes further broken down into smaller
divisions of time.
pharynx The connection between the mouth and the throat through
which food and air pass.
photosynthesis A metabolic process in which an organisms cells
convert energy from the Sun, carbon dioxide, and water to reproduce
their cells; the waste product of photosynthesis is free oxygen released
into the atmosphere.
phyla The major subdivisions of organisms after one of the three major
kingdoms of life; the word phyla is the plural of phylum.
phylogeny The history of the evolutionary relationships among species,
which can be diagrammed; also known as the tree of life.
physiology The way in which an animals parts work together and are
adapted to help the organism survive.
population Members of the same species that live in a particular area.
posterior Directional term indicating the tail end of a vertebrate; also
known as the caudal end.
poriferans (Porifera) Animal phylum whose members have cells that
are not organized into tissues or organs; poripherans are composed
primarily of chambers for channeling water; they include the
sponges.
Precambrian The unit of geologic time that lasted from the beginning
of Earth, 4.5 billion years ago, until 542 million years ago.
precipitation Rain or snow.
predation Feeding on other live animals.
predator An animal that actively seeks and feeds on other live
animals.
prehistory History of life on Earth prior to the written history of
humans; prehistoric time.

proximal Directional term used to indicate a part of a vertebrate that is
closer to the center of the body of the animal.
punctuated equilibria Rapid evolution of a given species followed by a
long period in which little change occurs.
relative dating Determining the date of one layer of the Earth by
comparing it to a previously identified layer.
rift In Earths crust, a gap between two tectonic plates that have moved
apart.
scavenger An animal that feeds on the dead remains of other animals.
sedimentary rock Rock that forms in layers from the debris of other
rocks or the remains of organisms.
seismograph A scientific instrument used to detect, measure, and
record seismic waves caused by earthquakes, thereby creating a
permanent record of Earths motion.
self-organization A mathematical basis for predicting the seemingly
spontaneous occurrence of order, developed by Stuart Kauffman as an
adjunct to the evolutionary theory of natural selection.
short-term biological adaptation A temporary physiological change
that occurs naturally in an organism when it encounters a change to
its environment; short-term biological adaptations are not passed on
to offspring.
sipunculans (Sipuncula) Animal phylum whose members have
a plump, peanut-shaped, unsegmented body with a long mouth
appendage that can be retracted into the body; sipunculans bodies
are muscular, with a hard outer covering; they include burrowing
marine worms.
small shelly fauna Tiny marine animals from the Early Cambrian
Epoch whose remains include fossils of the hard, shell-like body parts
they left behind.
species In classification, the most basic biological unit of living organisms;
members of a species can interbreed and produce fertile offspring.
stromatolites Near-shore, multilayered, rocklike structures created by
photosynthesizing bacterial organisms that live in vast colonies in
shallow ocean waters; fossil stromatolites represent one of the oldest
known records of life.
subduction zone A deep trench in the seafloor caused by the collision
of tectonic plates.
superposition The principle of superposition states that younger rocks
are generally found on top of older rocks.
Glossary 169
suspension feeder Marine animal that catches, traps, and filters out
food particles floating through the water.
taxon A single unit of classification.
taxa A group unit of classification.
taxonomy The science of classifying living and extinct species of
organisms.
tectonic plates Large, slowly moving slabs of crust that ride on top of
Earths semiliquid and molten mantle.
tetrapods Vertebrate animals with four limbs, or their evolutionary
descendents that have modified or lost limbs; includes all amphibians,
reptiles, mammals, and birds.
topography The physical features of a place or habitat.
trace fossil A type of fossil that preserves evidence of the presence of a
prehistoric organism but that does not include body parts; fossilized
trackways or feces are examples of trace fossils.
trackway The fossilized footprints or markings left by a prehistoric
animal.
transitional fossil A fossil that represents intermediate conditions in
the evolution of a species.
trilobite An extinct form of arthropod whose fossils are found in rocks
dating from the Early Cambrian to the Late Permian Epochs, with a
three-part body and a hard exoskeleton.
uniformitarianism A geologic principle originating with James
Hutton; it states that the geologic forces that can be observed in the
present are the same as the forces that shaped the Earth in the past.
Urochordata A subphylum of chordates with bulbous, baglike bodies;
the tadpolelike young have a notochord; a dorsal hollow nerve cord;
and gill slits.
Vendian Name assigned to a division of time, from 541 million to
630 million years ago, during which some of the earliest forms of
multicelled animals lived.
Vendian fauna Multicelled animals that lived during Vendian times,
from 541 to 630 million years ago.
ventral Directional term indicating the underside or belly of a
vertebrate.
Vertebrata Animals with backbones; the largest subphylum of
chordates.
CHAPTER BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Chapter 5 Jawless Fishes

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Siveter, and Feng Xiang-Hong. New Evidence on the Anatomy and
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Chapter 7 Cartilaginous Fishes:

The Sharks and Rays
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from the Lower Carboniferous of Bearsden, Scotland. Journal of
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FURTHER READING
Benton, Michael. Vertebrate Paleontology. 3rd ed. Oxford: Blackwell
Publishing, 2005.
Gould, Stephen J., ed. The Book of Life. New York: W.W. Norton, 1993.
International Commission on Stratigraphy. International Stratigraphic
Chart [Time Scale Chart]. Available online. URL: http://www.
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Lambert, David. Encyclopedia of Prehistory. New York: Facts on File,
2002.
Morris, Simon Conway. The Crucible of Creation: The Burgess Shale and
the Rise of Animals. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.
Macmillan, 1994.
Books, 1999.
Prothero, Donald R., and Robert H. Dott, Jr. Evolution of the Earth. New
Singer. Biology. 7th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2005.
Taylor, Barbara. Earth Explained: A Beginners Guide to Our Planet. New
York: Henry Holt, 1997.
Troll, Ray. Rapture of the Deep. Berkeley: University of California Press,
2004.
Woese, Carl R. Prokaryote Systematics: The Evolution of a Science.
Prokaryotes, second edition, New York, Springer, 1990.
Xian-Guang Hou, Richard J. Aldridge, Jan Bergstrom, David J. Siveter,
Derek J. Siveter, and Xiang-Hong Feng, The Cambrian Fossils of
177
Web Sites
American Geological Institute: Constructing Understandings
of Earth Systems
This site is an interactive reference, provided by the American
Geological Institute, to the primary systems that work together
to make the world we know, including the geosphere, the
hydrosphere, the atmosphere, and the biosphere.
http://www.agiweb.org/education/cues/index.html
American Museum of Natural History: Life Forms

The American Museum of Natural History provides a guide to
deep-sea hydrothermal animals, some of the most unusual and
primitive creatures on the planet.
http://www.amnh.org/nationalcenter/expeditions/blacksmokers/
life_forms.html
Australian Museum: Palaeontology

Exhibits on the site include Australias Lost Kingdoms, a
photographic journey that explores early fossils and life-forms
found in Australia.
http://www.austmus.gov.au/palaeontology/index.htm
Hamlin, Jerome. The Fish Out of Time

This Web site includes video footage of live coelacanths in their
natural habitat.
http://www.dinofish.com/
Kazlev, Alan, and Augustus White. Palaeos: The Trace of Life on Earth
This site is a robust and growing reference about all kinds of
life-forms.
http://www.palaeos.com/
Lapworth Museum, University of Birmingham. Palaeontological

Collections: Vertebrate Collection
Online exhibits explore early vertebrate life, particularly fishes,
from the United Kingdom.
http://www.lapworth.bham.ac.uk/collections/palaeontology/
vertebrates.htm
Further Reading 179
Maddison, D.R., and K.-S. Schulz. The Tree of Life Web Project
This site is hosted by the University of Arizona College of
Agriculture and Life Sciences and the University of Arizona
Library and provides a meticulously designed view of life-forms
based on their phylogenetic (evolutionary) connections.
http://tolweb.org/tree/phylogeny.html
Paleontology Portal: Vertebrates

This site explores early vertebrate life; produced by the University
of California Museum of Paleontology, the Paleontological Society,
the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, and the United States
Geological Survey.
http://www.paleoportal.org/index.php?globalnav=fossil_gallery
&sectionnav=taxon&taxon_id=16
Peripatus, Chris: Paleontology Page

Provides a privately compiled but exhaustive resource on many
paleontology subjects, including a valuable look at the Burgess
Shale fossils.
http://www.peripatus.gen.nz/Paleontology/Index.html
Public Broadcasting Service: Evolution Library: Evidence for Evolution

This resource outlines the extensive evidence in support of both
the fact and the theory of evolution; the sites approach is based on
studies of the fossil record, molecular sequences, and comparative
anatomy.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/04/
Scotese, Christopher R.: Paleomap Project

This site is a valuable source of continental maps showing the
positioning of the Earths continents over the course of geologic time.
http://www.scotese.com/
Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Department of

Paleobiology: Burgess Shale Fossil Specimens
A catalog of Burgess Shale fossil specimens, life depictions, and
facts are listed on this site.
http://paleobiology.si.edu/burgess/burgessSpecimens.html#
United States Geological Survey. Inside the Earth

This site includes cutaway views of the composition of the Earth.
http://pubs.usgs.gov/publications/text/inside.html
University of California Museum of Paleontology: Fossil Evidence:

Transitional Forms
This site gives a tutorial about transitional forms in the fossil
record with illustrated examples.
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/lines/IAtransitional.shtml
Zwicker, Ken, and TERC: How Diverse Is Life on Your Site? Taxonomy
and the Five Kingdoms of Life
An introduction to the taxonomy and systematics of the kingdoms
of life can be found at this site.
http://www.concord.org/~btinker/guide/fieldguide/taxonomy.
html
PICTURE CREDITS
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Infobase Publishing
Infobase Publishing
Infobase Publishing
Infobase Publishing
Thom Holmes
Jon Bertsch/Visuals
Unlimited
Cleve Hickman Jr./
Visuals Umlimited
Infobase Publishing
Infobase Publishing
John Sibbick
(left) Albert J. Copley/
Visuals Unlimited/(right)
Mark Purnell/University of
Leicester
Mark Purnell/University of
Leicester
Infobase Publishing
Infobase Publishing
Dr. Mark V. H. Wilson,
Laboratory for Vertebrate
Paleontology, Dept.
of Biological Sciences,
University of Alberta
John Sibbick
Getty Images
Infobase Publishing
Tom McHugh/Photo
Researchers, Inc.
103: Glenn Oliver/Visuals

Unlimited
104: John Sibbick
109: Infobase Publishing
110: Ego Guiotto/Australian
Geographic
111: Thom Holmes
117: Thom Holmes
122: Ray Troll
123: Ray Troll
127: Ray Troll
128: Thom Holmes
129: Ray Troll
131: Ray Troll
143: Dr. Hans Arne Nakrem/
Natural History Museum,
University of Oslo
145: Photo courtesy Dr. Amy R.
McCune International
Institute for Applied Systems
Analysis
150: Dr. John Cunningham/
Visuals Unlimited
181
INDEX
a
Acanthodes, 109
Acanthodians, 108109,
112113
Actinistians, 146,
150151, 152154
Actinopterygians. See
ray-finned fishes
(Actinopterygii)
Agassiz, Louis, 153
Agnathans. See jawless
fishes (Agnatha)
Akmonistion, 121
Albanesi, Guillermo, 86
Aldridge, Richard, 72, 73
Ammonites
(ammonoids), 4142
Amphiaspids, 8889
Amphibians, 76
Amphicentrum, 142
Anal fin, 107
Anaspida, 9091,
105106
Anatolepsis, 8384
Anatomical traits. See
also specific groups and
species
overview, 5861
fins and tails, 105107
jaws, origin and
development of,
99105
swim bladders,
107108
Anoxia, 48, 94
Anterior, 62
Antiarchs, 111
Apatite, 61, 135

Appendicular skeletons,
60
Arandaspida, 8586
Arandaspis, 8586
Archipelepis, 92
Arthrodires, 112
Asteroid strikes, 3738,
4748
Astraspida, 8485
Astraspis, 8485
Athenaegis, 87
Atmosphere, 2526,
2832
Average global
temperature. See
temperatures, global
Axial skeleton, 5960
Bony fishes
(Osteichythes)
overview, 135
evolution in two
directions, 154155
lobe-finned, 135,
146154
origin of, 136137
ray-finned, 135,
137146
traits of, 135136
Bothriolepis, 111
Bowfins
(halecomorphids), 144
Briggs, Derek, 72
Buoyancy, 107, 115116
Burgess Shale, 38, 67
Calcium phosphate, 61,

7071
Cambrian fauna, 55
Cambrian Period
average global tem-
perature, 27
diversity of life forms
in, 14
ecosystem change and
organism diversifi-
cation, 31
first vertebrates in, 66
life diversification
in, 32
time span of, 20
Canobius, 141142
Carbon dioxide (CO2),
26, 2829
Backbones, 59
Ball and socket joint,
112
Basal actinopterygians,
138, 139, 140144
Becker, Luann, 4748
Belantsea, 123126
Bendix-Almgreen, Svend
E., 126
Benthic organisms, 56
Benton, Michael, 44,
48, 49
Bichirs, 140
Bilateral symmetry, 59,
62
Bockelie, Tove G., 83, 84
Bone, cellular, 61
182
index 183
Carboniferous Period,
20, 2728, 31, 32
Cartilaginous fishes
(Chondrichthyes)
cartilage, 114
elasmobranchs,
119128
Holocephali, 129132
longevity and radia-
tion of, 132133
origin of, 118119
tooth whorl puzzle,
124126
traits, 107, 114118
Caudal, 62
Caudal fin, 106
Cellular bone, 61
Cephalaochordates,
5658, 6667
Cephalaspidomorphi
(lampreys), 82, 103
Cheirolepis, 139,
140141
Chemostat, global, 37, 48
Chengjian formation, 67,
68, 69
Chimaerans, 130131
Chondrenchelyiformes,
129
Chondrichthyes. See
cartilaginous fishes
Chordates, 5658,
6668
Circulatory system, 60
Cladoselache, 120
Clarkson, Euan, 72
Claspers, 118, 129
Climate changes. See also
temperatures, global
evidence of, 21
extinction caused by,
36
Permian-Triassic
extinction and,
4445
polar land vs. oceans

and, 25, 41
Clydagnathus, 72
Coccosteus, 112
Coelacanths, 135136,
150151, 152154
Comet strikes, 3738,
4748
Conodonta, 7075,
105
Continental drift, 20
Convergent evolution,
111
Cooling, global, 41, 42,
45. See also glaciation
Courtney-Latimer,
Marjorie, 152153
Cranial, 62
Ctenaspis, 8889
Ctenurella, 112
Cyanobacteria, 29, 30
Cyathaspids, 8788
D
Darwin, Charles, 44
Deltoptychius, 131132
Denaea, 120121
Denticles, 71, 74
Devonian Period, 20, 27,
31, 4142
Digestive system, 60
Dipnoi (lungfishes), 108,
146, 147, 151
Dipterus, 151
Distal, 62
Doliodus problematicus,
119
Donoghue, Philip C.J.,
74, 86
Dorsal, 62
Dorsal fins, 107
Drepanasipis, 90
Drift feeders, 154
Dunkleosteus, 104105,
110, 112
e
Earths surface,
reflectivity of, 2425
Eaton, Theodore H., Jr.,
125
Ecosystems, 31, 3536,
4950
Edestus, 123
Eglonaspis, 88
Elasmobranchs
overview, 119120
Akmonistion, 121
Belantsea, 123126
Cladoselache, 120
Denaea, 120121
Edestus, 123
Falcatus, 121
Helicoprion, 116117,
121122, 124126
Hybodus, 126127
Stethacanthus, 121
Xenacanthus,
127128
Electroreceptors, 118
End-Cambrian
extinction, 3840
Endoskeleton, 60, 135
Equilibrium, 29, 37
Erwin, Douglas H., 46
Eusthenopteron, 149150
Evolution
agnathans and, 80,
8182, 97
of cartilaginous fishes,
114115, 119
conodonts and, 75
convergent, 111
of jaws, 100105
lobe-finned fishes,
importance of, 136
oxygen and, 2932
Paleozoic Era and, 14
vertebrates, evolution-
ary history of, 76

Extinction
overview, 35
causes of mass extinc-
tions, 3538
ecological shakedown
from, 4950
end-Cambrian extinc-
tion, 3840
of jawless fishes, 105
Late Devonian extinc-
tion, 4142
Ordovician-Silurian
extinction, 4041
Permian-Triassic
extinction, 4249,
76
religion and, 44
oceanic changes and,

21
Ordovician-Silurian
extinction and, 41
Permian-Triassic
extinction and, 45
Global chemostat, 37, 48
Global heat budget,
2427
Gnathostomes, 80, 105.
See also jawed fishes
Greenhouse effect, 26, 48
Griphognathus, 151
Groenlandaspis, 110
Guildayichthys,
142143
Gyroptychius, 148149
Falcatus, 121
Filter feeders, 99. See
also jawless fishes
(Agnatha)
Fins, 106107
Fish kills, 94
Forelimbs, 147
Forests, tropical, 31, 32
Fortey, Richard, 83, 84
Fossils and fossil record,
19, 5455, 71, 8081
Furcacauda, 92
Hagfishes (Hyperotreti),
82, 102103
Halecomorphids
(bowfins), 144
Harding Sandstone, 84
Helicoprion, 116117,
121122, 124126
Helodus, 130131
Hemicyclaspis, 93, 96
Heterocercal tails, 115
Heterostraci, 8690
Holocephali, 129132
Homologies, 61
Hybodus, 126127
Hydrodynamics, 116
Hyperotreti (hagfishes),
82, 102103
G
Galeaspida, 9293, 97
Gemuendina, 111
Geologic events and
fossil record, 19
Geologic time scale,
1920
Gills, 60, 101, 147, 151
Glaciation
carbon dioxide and,
26
36
I
Ice caps, polar, 25
Ice sheets, 21
Idiognathodus, 74
Index fossils, 71
Inferior, 62
Iniopterygiformes, 129
Iniopteryx, 130
Interglacial period,
modern, 27
Internal skeleton, 5960
J
Jamoytius, 8283
Jawed fishes. See
also bony fishes
(Osteichythes);
(Chondrichthyes)
acanthodians,
108109
Devonian Period and,
41
evolutionary devel-
opment of jaws,
99101
fins, tails, and swim-
ming ability,
105107
first appearance of,
108
importance of jaws,
101105, 106
placoderms, 42,
109112
radiation of, 112113
swim bladders,
107108
Jawless fishes (Agnatha)
Anaspida, 9091
Anatolepsis, 8384
Astraspida and
Arandaspida, 8486
in Devonian Period,
41
earliest, 68
evolution of, 80,
8182, 97
extinction of, 105
as filter feeders, 99
fins, tails, and swim-
ming ability,
105107
Index 185
Galeaspida, 9293,
97
Heterostraci, 8690
living relatives of, 82,
102103
Miller and Old Red
Sandstone and,
9496
Myllokunmingiida,
6870
Ordovician-Silurian
extinction and,
4041
Osteostraci, 9297
Pituriaspida, 9293,
97
swimming and,
105106
Thelodonti, 92
traits of, 8083,
99100
Jaws, evolutionary
importance of,
101105, 106
Jin Yugan, 46
K
Karpinsky, Andrzej P.,
124
L
Lampreys
(Cephalaspidomorphi),
82, 103
Lancelets, 5658
Land animals, roots of,
155
Late Devonian
extinction, 4142
Latimeria, 150151,
152154
Lepisosteids, 144
Lindstrm, Maurits,
72
Liver, in sharks, 116
Lobe-finned fishes
(Sarcopterygii)
overview, 146
actinistians, 146,
150151
coelacanths, 135136
lungfishes (Dipnoi),
146, 147, 151
osteolepiforms, 146,
149150
porolepiforms, 146,
148149
ray fins vs., 135
traits of, 146147
Lungfishes (Dipnoi),
108, 146, 147, 151
Lungs, 60, 151
Lyell, Robert, 44
M
Magnetic fields, 118
Mantle, 20
Mass spectrometers, 24
Meishan formation, 46
Methane burp, 48
Miller, Hugh, 9496
Miller, Randall, 119
Mimia, 141
Modern fauna, 55, 68
Morris, Simon Conway,
67
Moythomasia, 139
Murchison, Roderick
Impey, 4344
Muscles, segmented, 60
Museum bias toward
vertebrates, 15
Myllokunmingiida,
6870, 105
N
Nautiloids, 4041
Neeyambaspis, 97
Neopterygians, 138,
139140, 144146
Neoselachii, 119
Nerves in sharks, 118
Newton, Edwin T., 125
Notochord, 56, 59, 73
O
Obruchev, Dimitri, 125
Oceans, 21, 25, 29, 31
Old Red Sandstone, 43,
9495
Onychodus, 137
Ordovician Period
agnathan fossils in,
8081
average global tem-
perature, 27
ecosystem change and
organism diversifi-
cation, 31
jawed fishes, appear-
ance of, 108
Paleozoic fauna in,
55
time span of, 20
Ordovician-Silurian
extinction, 4041
Osteichthyans. See bony
fishes (Osteichythes)
Osteolepiforms, 146,
149150
Osteolepis, 149
Osteostraci, 9297,
105106
Oxygen, 2832, 48, 94
Oxygen isotope readings,
24
P
Palaeoniscids, 138
Palaeoniscum, 143144
Paleoclimatology, 21.
See also temperatures,
global
Paleontologists, work of,
5455

Paleozoic Era
overview, 19
average global tem-
peratures, 2728
ecological complexity
in, 14
geologic time periods
of, 1920
life diversification in,
3233
organism diversifica-
tion and ecosystem
change, 31
plate tectonics, 2021
Paleozoic fauna, 55
Pangaea, 2728, 45
Panthalassa, 28
Paraphyletic groups, 138
Pectoral fins, 107
Pelvic fins, 107
Permian Period, 20, 28,
4344
Permian-Triassic
extinction, 4249, 76
Pharynx, 60, 100
Photosynthesis, 28, 29
Pikaia, 6768
Pinatubo, Mount, 2526
Pituriaspida, 9293, 97
Pituriaspis, 97
Placoderms
overview, 109110
antiarchs, 111
arthrodires, 112
Dunkleosteus,
104105, 110, 112
as experiment in
adaptability,
112113
Late Devonian extinc-
tion and, 42
ptyctodontids, 112
rhenanids, 110111
Plate tectonics, 2021, 36
Polar regions, 25, 41

Porolepiforms, 146,
148149
Posterior, 62
Promissum, 73
Proximal, 62
Psammodsteids, 8990
Psarolepis, 137
Pteraspids, 89
Ptyctodontids, 112
Purnell, Mark A., 74
R
Ray-finned fishes
(Actinopterygii)
overview, 137138
basal actinopteryg-
ians, 138, 139,
140144
lobe fins vs., 135
neopterygians, 138,
139140, 144146
teleosts, 138, 144
traits of, 138140
Rays, 110111. See also
(Chondrichthyes)
Reflectivity of the Earths
surface, 2425
Reif, Wolf-Ernst, 132
Religion, 44, 95
Reptiles, 76
Respiratory system, 60,
101
Rhenanids, 110111
Rhyncholepis, 91, 106
S
Sacabambaspis, 8586
Sansom, Ivan J., 86
Sarcopteryians. See
lobe-finned fishes
(Sarcopterygii)
Sedgwick, Adam, 43
Semionotids, 144146
Semionotus, 144146
Senses in sharks, 118
Seposki, J. John, Jr.,
5455, 66, 154155
Sharks. See cartilaginous
fishes (Chondrichthyes)
Shells, marine, 24
Shu, Degan, 6869
Siberian Traps, 47, 48
Sibyrhynchus, 130
Silurian Period, 20, 27,
31
Skeletons, 5960, 81, 96
Skull, 60
Smith, J.L.B., 152153
Solar radiation, 24, 26,
3637
Special creation theory,
95
Spinal column, 60
Spinal nerve chord, 60
Spiny sharks
(acanthodians),
108109
Stethacanthus, 121
Streamlined body, 106
Sulfuric acid vapor, 26
Superior, 62
Swim bladders, 107108
Swimming ability,
105107, 115116
Symmetry, bilateral, 59,
62
T
Tail (caudal) fin, 106
Tails and swimming
development, 106107
Tectonic plates, 20, 21,
36, 3940
Teleosts, 138, 144
Temperatures, global
overview, 2124
Index 187
average, 24
global heat budget
factors, 2427
oxygen and carbon
dioxide levels,
2829
of Paleozoic, 2728
Tetrapods, 136, 149
Thelodonti, 92
Thies, Detlev, 132
Tooth whorls, 116117,
124126
Trilobites, 3840, 41
Tsunamis, 37
U
Urochordates, 56
V
Ventral, 62
Ventral (anal) fin, 107
Vertebrates. See also
specific groups
clues to earliest,
6164
directional terminol-
ogy, 6263
evolutionary history
of, 76
museum bias toward,
15
as subphylum of chor-
dates, 58
tropical forests and,
31
Volcanic eruptions
3637, 3940
Mount Pinatubo,
2526
Siberian Traps, 47, 48
W
Walcott, Charles, 67,
8485
X
Xenacanthus, 127128
Z
Zhongjianichthys, 6970
Zhu, Min, 137
ABOUT THE AUTHOR

thOM hOLMes is a writer specializing in natural history subjects
and dinosaurs. He is noted for his expertise on the early history of
dinosaur science in America. He was the publications director of
The Dinosaur Society for five years (19911997) and the editor of its
newsletter, Dino Times, the worlds only monthly publication devoted
to news about dinosaur discoveries. It was through the Society and
his work with the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia that
Thom developed widespread contacts and working relationships
with paleontologists and paleo-artists throughout the world.
Thoms published works include Fossil Feud: The Rivalry of
Americas First Dinosaur Hunters (Silver Burdett Press, September
1997); The Dinosaur Library (Enslow, 20012002); Duel of the
Dinosaur Hunters (Pearson Education, 2002); and Fossil Feud: The
First American Dinosaur Hunters (Silver Burdett/Julian Messner,
1997). His many honors and awards include the National Science
Teachers Associations Outstanding Science Book of 1998, Voices
of Youth Advocates 1997 Nonfiction Honor List, an Orbis Pictus
Honor, and the Chicago Public Library Associations Best of the
Best in science books for young people.
Thom did undergraduate work in geology and studied pale-
ontology through his role as a staff educator with the Academy of
Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. He is a regular participant in field
exploration, including two recent expeditions to Patagonia in asso-
ciation with Canadian, American, and Argentinian institutions.
188

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THE FIRST

THE PREHISTORIC EARTH

THE PREHISTORIC EARTH: The First Vertebrates

Section One: The World of the Paleozoic Era

If a writer were to write a history of all sports, would it be enough

EXPlORING PAST lIfE

in the series also provides a chapter-by-chapter bibliography of

needed to put thoughts down on paper and complete the draft of a

12 the first vertebrates

provided stable conditions under which life thrived and diversified;

OvERvIEW Of THE fIRST vERTEBRATES

ocean and land environments, including worldwide climate changes

16 the first vertebrates

patterns of Paleozoic organisms. Many chapters also include Think

GEOlOGIC TIME PERIOdS Of THE

20 the first vertebrates

The organisms described in this book lived during the Paleozoic

The Paleozoic world was subject to many natural events that

CONTINENTAL AND OCEANIC CHANGES:

Continents and Climates of the Paleozoic Era 21

The habitats created by the changing face of the Earth served as

22 the first vertebrates

An illustrated guide to continental drift

Continents and Climates of the Paleozoic Era 23

24 the first vertebrates

(continued from page 21)

Factors Affecting Global Temperature

Continents and Climates of the Paleozoic Era 25

Dark-colored rocks and forests

Light-colored rocks and barren ground

Atmosphere (clouds and dust)

Snow and ice

Proximity of the poles to oceans and landmasses. Earths poles have

26 the first vertebrates

sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere. When sulfur dioxide is com-

Continents and Climates of the Paleozoic Era 27

drop in mean annual temperature of only 5 to 9F (3 to 5C) to get

Average Global Temperatures of the Paleozoic

28 the first vertebrates

rain-forest flora and fauna. The

Oxygen and Carbon Dioxide Levels

Continents and Climates of the Paleozoic Era 29

cyanobacteria, which originated about 3.5 billion years ago. By

32 the first vertebrates

Paleozoic Era, oxygen levels in the atmosphere rose accordingly, fed

Continents and Climates of the Paleozoic Era 33

serves as a reminder that nothing in geologic history is guaranteed,

1. The Paleozoic Era stretched back from 251 million to 542

3.During the second half of the Paleozoic Era, which included

the Devonian, Carboniferous, and Permian Periods, all of

CAUSES Of MASS EXTINCTIONS

36 the first vertebrates

diversify. So goes the balancing act of nature; when one group of

Shifts in Earths crust. Movement of tectonic plates can

greatly affect the habitat of species. The formation of

Paleozoic Mass Extinctions 37

within the atmosphere. Volcanic gases also may poison the

38 the first vertebrates

MASS EXTINCTIONS OF THE PALEOZOIC ERA