Thelodonti

Thelodonti (from Greek: 'feeble teeth') is a class of extinct jawless fishes with distinctive scales instead of large plates of armor. There is much debate over whether the group of Palaeozoic fish known as the Thelodonti (formerly coelolepids) represent a monophyletic grouping, or disparate stem groups to the major lines of jawless and jawed fish. Thelodonts are united in possession of 'thelodont scales'. This defining character is not necessarily a result of shared ancestry, as it may have been evolved independently by different groups. Thus the thelodonts are generally thought to represent a polyphyletic group, although there is no firm agreement on this point. On the basis that they are monophyletic, they are reconstructed as being ancestrally marine and invading freshwater on multiple occasions. 'Thelodonts' were morphologically very similar, and probably closely related, to fish of the classes Heterostraci and Anaspida, differing mainly in their covering of distinctive, small, spiny scales. These scales were easily dispersed after death; their small size and resilience makes them the most common vertebrate fossil of their time. The fish lived in both freshwater and marine environments, first appearing during the Ordovician, and perishing during the Frasnian–Famennian extinction event of the Late Devonian. Traditionally they were considered predominantly deposit-feeding bottom dwellers, but more recent studies have showed they occupied various ecological roles in various parts of the water column, much like modern bony fishes and sharks. In particular, a large variety of species preferred reef ecosystems, and it has been suggested that this preference was the reason for the development of their unique scales, protecting against abrasion and allowing for the development of more flexible bodies than other jawless fish, which had inflexible armors and were restricted to open habitats.