Jagorina

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Jagorina
Fossil range: Upper Devonian

Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Placodermi
Order: Rhenanida
Family: Asterosteidae
Genus: Jagorina
Species: J. pandora

Jagorina pandora ("Jagorin's Gift") was a rhenanid placoderm of Upper Devonian Germany and Morocco. As with other rhenanids, it was a flattened, skate-like fish protected in an armor made up of unfused tubercles, and preyed on other, smaller fish by ambushing them from the sea bottom.

Although J. pandora is known primarily from bone fragments and an intact skull, it is the second most studied rhenanid, after Gemuendina stuertzi. It is from Jagorina that the details of the skull anatomy of rhenanids are known. Although scientists know of the overall anatomy and bodyplan of rhenanids because of G. stuertzi, very little information has been gleaned from the skulls of those specimens, as they all have been greatly flattened.

[edit] External links

[edit] References

  • Janvier, Philippe. Early Vertebrates Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. ISBN 0-19-854047-7
  • Long, John A. The Rise of Fishes: 500 Million Years of Evolution Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996. ISBN 0-8018-5438-5