Interpretations of conodont anatomy and affinity continue to generate controversy. Fossilized soft-tissue evidence indicates that conodonts possessed eyes, extrinsic eye muscles, a notochord, myomeres, a differentiated tail with fin radials, possible otic capsules and possible branchial structures. Indirect evidence suggests a differentiated brain and cartilaginous head skeleton. The multi-comp...

Conodonts have been considered the earliest skeletonizing vertebrates and their mineralized feeding apparatus interpreted as having performed a tooth function. However, the absence of jaws in conodonts and the small size of their oropharyngeal musculature limits the force available for fracturing food items, presenting a challenge to this interpretation. We address this issue quantitatively usi...

The fossil record of conodonts may be among the best of any group of organisms, but it is biased nonetheless. Preand syndepositional biases, including predation and scavenging of carcasses, current activity, reworking and bioturbation, cause loss, redistribution and breakage of elements. These biases may be exacerbated by the way in which rocks are collected and treated in the laboratory to ext...

The origin of jaws remains largely an enigma that is best addressed by studying fossil and living jawless vertebrates. Conodonts were eel-shaped jawless animals, whose vertebrate affinity is still disputed. The geometrical analysis of exceptional three-dimensionally preserved clusters of oro-pharyngeal elements of the Early Triassic Novispathodus, imaged using propagation phase-contrast X-ray s...

based on the study of brachiopods and conodents a stratigraphic and relative age determination research has been worked out on the paleozoic sediments, located in south of bojnod,northeas of iran.for the first time the sediments of upper ordevician have been recognized in iran, based on some index fossils of brachiopods and conodonts. fourteen species of upper ordovician brachiopods and 12 spec...

—Analysis of dental wear and damage is becoming an increasingly important tool in unraveling the trophic ecology of a wide range of vertebrates, and when applied to fossils it can provide evidence of both diet and feeding kinematics that is independent of morphological analysis. Conodonts have the best fossil record among vertebrates and their skeletal elements are known to exhibit surface wear...

The paper is devoted to the Upper Cambrian and Tremadocian organophosphatic microfossils which were hitherto treated as conodonts and assigned mainly to the genera Coelocerodontus and Viirodus. Individual elements of the fossils, similarly to the elements of conodonts, belonged originally to the multi-element apparatuses. Present studies, based mainly on the collections from Sweden, Poland (cor...

Anticosti Island, Que¤bec, has perhaps the most fossiliferous and complete Llandovery (Early Silurian) sequence in the world. The undeformed limestones are well exposed and yield extremely well preserved conodonts whose taxonomy and biostratigraphy has been studied in detail. In addition to documenting the general temporal and spatial distribution of Llandovery conodonts, a set of 107 conodont ...