Mace Brown Museum Blog
Armored fishes lived during the late Cambrian-Devonian period and was split into two different groups. Ostracoderm which means shell-skinned and placoderm which means plated skin. The placoderms had armor like plates on their head and thorax leaving the rest of the body naked. A prime example of this type of fish is the Dunkleosteus. The Dunkleoteus terrelli was a top predator known as an arthrodire from the Devonian period. These animals reached about 33 feet in length and weighed up to 4 tons. Their teeth are not actual teeth, they are in fact razor-sharp bony plates. Their teeth were self sharpening and never stopped growing. The Dunkleosteus bite was predicted to be the most powerful before the Megalodon shark came about in the Cenozoic period. Eight thousand pounds per square inch is the predicted power of this creatures bite. The oldest evidence of fish was found in Cambrian rocks in China from about 530 million years ago. These fossil are from the Ordovicia...