With this picture in the jawless fish series I've been working on we come to what will likely be the most controversial segment of the series the Conodonts. More technically this time we shall be exploring the Paraconodontida which fall outside the class Conodonta being the sister group and likely ancestor to that class.
Before we continue I think it's worth clarifying what I shall be doing with this group of jawless fish in particular. Technically speaking while there are dozens of genera known from hundreds of thousands of teeth elements we only have 3 known from complete body animals the first of which was only discovered in 1983. So if I wanted to be most accurate I would only draw three conodonts but I think that would be a disservice to the group, plus I would have to exclude this entire separate order. So as a compromise for this group, and this group only I have decided to draw every genera instead of every species.
With that being said back on topic the Paraconodontida are strictly speaking not true conodonts but rather represent what they may have derived from and are the most basal group of animals commonly called Conodonts even if they're not.
This is deduced from their more basal simple jaw elements with a single main component as opposed to the true conodonts which had multiple.
Top Row: Westergaardodina
Second Row: Albiconus, Furnishina
Third Row: Gapparodus, Muellerodus
Fourth Row: Nogamiconus, Proacodus
Fifth Row: Problematoconites, Prooneotodus
Sixth Row: Prosagittodontus, Proscandodus
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