Cyathaspis is the type genus of the heterostracan order Cyathaspidiformes.[1] Fossils are found in late Silurian strata in the Cunningham Creek Formation, New Brunswick, Canada and Europe, especially in the Downton Castle Sandstone of Great Britain and Gotland, Sweden.[citation needed] The living animal would have looked superficially like a tadpole, albeit covered in bony plates composed of the tissue aspidine, which is unique to heterostracan armor.[citation needed]
Cyathaspis | |
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Reconstruction of C. banksii | |
Scientific classification | |
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Genus: | Cyathaspis Lankester
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Type species | |
Pteraspis banksii Huxley and Salter, 1856
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Cyathaspis ludensis is the earliest British vertebrate fossil.[citation needed] It was found in rocks at Leintwardine in Herefordshire, a noted fossil locality.[citation needed]
References
edit- ^ Matthew, George Frederic (1888). On Some Remarkable Organisms of the Silunian and Devonian Rocks in Southern New Brunswick. pp. 52–54.