Sunday, June 12, 2011


Pteraspis was a Devonian heterostracan with a beak-like rostrum in front of its head and wing-like things sticking out of the two back sides of its head armor. Pteraspis means "wing shield." 

It had a protective spine pointing backwards that would probably harm a predator that would try to eat it. Pteraspis was only about 8" and there were monster predators around like Eusthenopteron and Dunkleosteous. Pteraspis was jawless, so it had to suck in plankton through its mouth. 

Pteraspis was one of the last heterostracans and one of the last placoderms because placoderms went extinct at the end of the Devonian and so did the heterostracans (because heterostracans were placoderms).


  1. A childhood favorite! I loves me some jawless fish. Thanks again, and as always!

  2. I think Pteraspis is really cool too. And it's too bad we only have two jawless fish species alive today. And it's also too bad we don't have any placoderms alive today.

  3. I'm always confused as to how jawless fish (or jawless anything) can eat. If it's liquids (like the hagfish) or tiny things that are easily digested I get it, but by the Devonian there would have been bigger things to eat. Lots of active, shelled animals.

    Do we have traces of what those fish ate ?

  4. How did Pteraspis and its relatives go extinct?