Anaspida

Anaspida is an extinct group of jawless fish that existed from the early Silurian period to the late Devonian period. They were classically regarded as the ancestors of lampreys, but this is denied in recent phylogenetic analyses, although some analyses show these groups would be at least related. Anaspids were small marine fish that lacked a heavy bony shield and paired fins, but were distinctively hypocercal.

Anaspida

Apokryltaros · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
CyclostomataPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Chordata

Time the record covers

At least 418 million years on record.

The record covers at least 430.6 Mya to 11.63 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 443.1 Mya to 3.6 Mya.

Ordovician — about 0 of 36 occurrencesSilurian — about 33 of 36 occurrencesDevonian — about 2 of 36 occurrencesDevonianCarboniferous — about 0 of 36 occurrencesPermian — about 0 of 36 occurrencesEarly Triassic — about 0 of 36 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 0 of 36 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 0 of 36 occurrencesEarly Jurassic — about 0 of 36 occurrencesMiddle Jurassic — about 0 of 36 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 0 of 36 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous — about 0 of 36 occurrencesLate Cretaceous — about 0 of 36 occurrencesPaleocene — about 0 of 36 occurrencesEocene — about 0 of 36 occurrencesOligocene — about 0 of 36 occurrencesMiocene — about 1 of 36 occurrencesPliocene — about 0 of 36 occurrencesPleistocene — about 0 of 36 occurrences452–437 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences437–422 Mya — about 30 occurrences422–407 Mya — about 3 occurrences392–377 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences377–362 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences15–0 Mya — about 1 occurrence430.6 Mya11.63 Mya452 Mya0 Mya

36 occurrences of Anaspida on record, most of them in the Silurian. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group, and the chart stops with its fossils rather than at the present. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

36 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

14 formations

Halla — 57.61°N, 18.80°ESundvollen — 60.17°N, 10.30°EKip Burn — 55.65°N, 3.92°WKip Burn — 55.60°N, 3.99°WFish Bed — 55.52°N, 3.98°WFish Bed — 55.54°N, 3.94°WCowie — 56.95°N, 2.20°WKlinteberg — 57.61°N, 18.80°EChester Bjerg — 81.76°N, 61.77°WChester Bjerg — 81.75°N, 60.53°WSlot Burn — 55.65°N, 3.92°WCunningham Creek — 45.38°N, 66.32°WHimmiste — 58.27°N, 21.96°EOhesaare — 58.00°N, 22.02°EEscuminac — 48.11°N, 66.40°WDippal Burn — 55.56°N, 4.07°WVesiku Beds — 59.07°N, 24.79°E

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The named rock units Anaspida has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 7 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Anaspida and its relatives

Silurian

Where Anaspida and its relatives were recorded in the Silurian.

Found in the same rock

271 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 25 sites for Anaspida, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

16 references

Each of the 36 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 4 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Anaspida

Credit
Apokryltaros
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Anaspida was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itCyclostomata through timeFormations of the SilurianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Traquair)