Gemuendina stuertzi
From Paleos
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Fossil_range: Early Devonian |
Gemuendina stuertzi was an early placoderm of the order Rhenanida, of the seas of Early Devonian Germany. Gemuendina resembled a scaly ray with a pair of staring eyes, a pug-nose, and an upturned mouth. This leads virtually all artists who reconstruct it to give the creature a quizzical, almost shocked expression.
Unlike most other placoderms, such as the Antiarchs, or the Arthrodires, Gemuendina and its three other known relatives had armor made up of a mosaic of unfused bony plates. Also unlike other placoderms, it did not have the characteristic tooth plates of placoderms. Instead, it had star-shaped tubercle scales that allowed it to pick out shellfish and echinoderms out of the sediment, and crush them.
References
Paleos Rhenanida [1]
