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Extinct class of jawless fishes

Thelodonti (from Greek: "nipple teeth") is a class of extinct Palaeozoic jawless fishes with distinctive scales instead of large plates of armor. There is much debate over whether the group represents a monophyletic grouping, or disparate stem groups to the major lines of jawless and jawed fish. Thelodonts are united in possession of "thelodont scales". This defining character is not necessarily a result of shared ancestry, as it may have been evolved independently by different groups. Thus the thelodonts are generally thought to represent a polyphyletic group, although there is no firm agreement on this point. On the basis that they are monophyletic, they are reconstructed as being ancestrally marine and invading freshwater on multiple occasions. "Thelodonts" were morphologically very similar, and probably closely related, to fish of the classes Heterostraci and Anaspida, differing mainly in their covering of distinctive, small, spiny scales. These scales were easily dispersed after death; their small size and resilience makes them the most common vertebrate fossil of their time. The fish lived in both freshwater and marine environments, first appearing during the Ordovician, and perishing during the Frasnian–Famennian extinction event of the Late Devonian. Traditionally they were considered predominantly deposit feeding bottom dwellers, but more recent studies have showed they occupied various ecological roles in various parts of the water column, much like modern bony fishes and sharks. In particular, a large variety of species preferred reef ecosystems, and it has been suggested that this preference was the reason for the development of their unique scales, protecting against abrasion and allowing for the development of more flexible bodies than other jawless fish, which had inflexible armors and were restricted to open habitats.

The bony scales of the thelodont group, as the most abundant form of fossil, are also the best understood – and thus most useful. The scales were formed and shed throughout the organisms' lifetimes, and quickly separated after their death. Bone – being one of the most resistant materials to the process of fossilisation – often preserves internal detail, which allows the histology and growth of the scales to be studied in detail. The scales consist of a non growing "crown" composed of dentine, with a sometimes ornamented enameloid upper surface and an aspidine (acellular bony tissue) base. Its growing base is made of cell free bone, which sometimes developed anchorage structures to fix it in the side of the fish. with intermediate scale forms appearing between different areas; furthermore, scale morphology may not even be constant within a given body area. To confuse things further, scale morphologies are not unique to specific taxa, and may be indistinguishable on the same area of two different species. Thelodonts displayed similar squamation patterns as modern sharks, so functionally they served a similar role. This allows for a clearer observation of their ecological niches. In particular, protection against abrasion seems to have been the original role for these scales.

Thelodont scales are globally widespread during the Silurian and Early Devonian times, becoming restricted in range to Gondwana, until their extinction in the Late Devonian (Frasnian).