Placoderm Tapestries

A species of arthrodire placoderm from the late Devonian of Morocco. This trout-sized predator ate other fish and held them in place with pronged tooth plates.

Hello all geologists, paleontologists, and science lovers! Deck out your water bottle or your laptop with this cute Placoderm. Although he looks like he is no thoughts head empty, this early fish was a heavily armored predator, with thick bony plates around its skull that helped protect it as it hunted down prey.

Dunkleosteus was a 19.7 foot super-predator that used a lethal combination of suction and a wicked bite to cut through everything unlucky enough to cross it’s path, armor or no. Like many fish living today, D.terrelli most likely would swim close to unsuspecting prey and suck water into it’s mouth along with it’s victim. Instead of teeth, Dunkleosteus possessed a set of bony plates that were an extension of it’s own dermal armor. These places were self sharpening and would shear through most other armored fish with little trouble and was aided by a four-bar linkage mechanism that allowed it to open and close it’s jaws on the top and bottom at incredibly high speeds.

A salmon-sized predatory arthrodire placoderm from Late Devonian Bad Wildungen, Germany.

Hello all geologists, paleontologists, and science lovers! Deck out your water bottle or your laptop with this cute Placoderm. Although he looks like he is no thoughts head empty, this early fish was a heavily armored predator, with thick bony plates around its skull that helped protect it as it hunted down prey.

New research suggests Dunkleosteus was a bit smaller than we thought

A species of arthrodire placoderm from the late Devonian of Morocco. This trout-sized predator ate other fish and held them in place with pronged tooth plates.

Prehistoric dunkleosteus design