BI 122: CHORDATE ZOOLOGY

BY

Dr. Ignas Safari

May, 2021
PHYLUM CHORDATA
 Agnathans
The jawless fishes
Ostracoderms, The earliest Vertebrates
The earliest vertebrates were small, jawless fishes
collectively called ostracoderms.
Ostracoderms belong to the Agnatha division of
the vertebrates.
Ostracoderms lived during the Ordovician and
Silurian periods, 500 to 400 million years ago.
 The Ostracoderms cont…
Ostracoderms were characterized by the
following features;
They were small (20cm)
They were jawless, bottom feeders.
Their endoskeleton was cartilaginous but they
were covered with small bony plates.
They used a muscular pharynx to suck food into
their mouths and to exchange gases in
respiration.
Their gill slits were permanently open with no
protective operculum.
 The Ostracoderms cont…
Fins of Ostracoderms were small usually limited
to median fins and the tail was hypocercal or
turned downward.
As the fish swam, this fin configuration drove
the animal down into the bottom where its food
was located.
Rarely were there any lateral fins, but a few
species had paired paddle like extensions.
Ostracoderms were probably erratic, inefficient
swimmers.
 The Ostracoderms cont…
The bony plates were useful for protection but
inhibiting when rapid swimming was required.
Their permanently open anterior-ventral mouth
was only good for ploughing through the
bottom sediments.
They probably could not digest much of their
intake.
The lateral eyes were better than the site organs
of most insects but lacked the stereo or depth
perception of other vertebrates with more
frontal eyes.
 The Ostracoderms cont…
The earliest ostracoderms, called heterostracans,
lacked paired fins suggesting that they had clumsy
movements although sufficient to propel them
along the ocean bottom where they searched for
food.
Unlike the cilliary filter-feeding of protochordates,
ostracoderms sucked water into the pharynx by
muscular pumping, an important innovation
suggesting that ostracoderms may have been
mobile predators that fed on soft-bodied animals.
 The Ostracoderms cont…
During the Devonian period, the ostracoderms
underwent a major radiation, resulting in the
appearance of several peculiar-looking forms
varying in shape and length of the snout, dorsal
spines, and dermal plates.
One group, the Osteostracans improved the
efficiency of their benthic life by evolving paired
pectoral fins.
These fins, located just behind the head,
provided control over pitch and yaw thus
ensuring d well-directed forward movement.
 The ostracoderms cont…
• Another group of ostracoderms, the anapsids,
were more streamlined and more closely
resembled modern-day jawless fishes e.g.
lampreys than any other ostracoderm.
 Ostracoderms, the jawless fishes
of the Silurian and Devonian times
Gnathostomes, the Jawed Vertebrates
All jawed vertebrates, whether extinct or living,
are collectively called gnathostomes (“jaw
mouth”)
In contrast, jawless vertebrates are collectively
called agnathans (“without jaws”).
The living agnathans; the hagfishes and
lampreys, are also often called cyclostomes
(“circle mouth”).
Gnathostomes form a monophyletic group since
the presence of jaws is a derived character state
shared by all jawed fishes and tetrapods.
 Gnathostomes cont…
The origin of jaws was one of the most important
events in vertebrate evolution.
Evolution of jaws and fins allowed the early fish
to become active in pursuit of food and in
preying on large and active forms of food not
available to jawless vertebrates.
Gnathostomes possess;
- Hinged jaws,
- Notochord replaced by vertebrae,
- Paired appendages
Gnathostomes, The Jawed Vertebrates
• The earliest jawed fishes had small bodies
covered with protective spines
• They had internal skeletons made of cartilage
• Later, large jawed fishes called placoderms
evolved.
• These had massive heads with heavy bony
plates
• Spiny fishes and placoderms are extinct now.
• All jawed fishes today are either sharks or
bony fishes
 How Gnathostomes got their jaws?
• Ample evidence suggests that jaws arose
through modification of the first two pairs of
the serially repeated cartilaginous gill arches.
• Jaws and the gill supports of primitive fishes
such as the carboniferous shark suggests that
the upper jaw (palatoquadrate) and the lower
jaw (Meckel’s cartilage) evolved from
structures that originally functioned as gill
supports.
 The Evolution of jaws cont….
• We can see the beginnings of jaw formation in some
ostracoderms where the mouth becomes bordered
by strong dermal plates that could be manipulated
somewhat like jaws with the gill arch musculature.
• Later, the anterior gill arches became hinged and
bent forward into the characteristic position of
vertebrate jaws.
• Nearly as remarkable as this drastic morphological
remodeling is the subsequent evolutionary fate of
jawbone elements, their transformation into ear
ossicles of the mammalian middle ear.
 The Evolution of jaws cont….

Gill slits Cranium

Mouth
Skeletal rods
 The Evolution of jaws cont….

Gill slits Cranium

Mouth
Skeletal rods
 The Evolution of jaws cont….

Gill slits Cranium

Mouth
Skeletal rods
The jaws of a primitive gnathostome
Evidences that jaws evolved from gill arches
• Evidence that jaws evolved from gill arches are
threefold;
• First, both gill arches and jaws are derived from
neural crest cells rather than from mesodermal
tissue which is the source of most other bones.
• Second, both gill arches and jaws form from upper
and lower bars that bend forward and are hinged
at the middle.
• Third, the jaw musculature is homologous to the
original gill support musculature.
Placoderms, the earliest Gnathostomes
Among the first jawed vertebrates were
placoderms, a group of heavily armored fish.
Placoderms were covered with diamond-shaped
scales or with large plates of bone.
They first appear in the fossil record in the early
Devonian period (360-400 mya).
Most placoderms were bottom dwellers that fed
on detritus although some were active
predators.
Acanthodians, the earliest-known true jawed
fishes, carried less armor than placoderms.
 Placoderms cont…
Most placoderms were marine but several species
entered fresh water.
Placoderms evolved a great variety of forms, some
very large (one was 10 m in length) and grotesque in
appearance.
All Placoderms became extinct by the end of the
Paleozoic era and appear to have left no descendants.
However, the acanthodians, a group of early jawed
fishes that were contemporary with the placoderms,
may have given rise to the great radiation of bony
fishes that dominate the waters of the world today.
Placoderms, Early jawed fishes of the
Devonian period, 400 mya
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