Arandaspis

Arandaspis
Temporal range: Early Ordovician
480–470 Ma
Fossil of Arandaspis prionotolepis from Natural History Museum in London
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Infraphylum: Agnatha
Class: Pteraspidomorphi
Order: Arandaspidiformes
Family: Arandaspididae
Genus: Arandaspis
Ritchie & Gilbert-Tomlinson, 1977
Type species
Arandaspis prionotolepis
Ritchie & Gilbert-Tomlinson, 1977
Species[1]
  • A. prionotolepis Ritchie & Gilbert-Tomlinson, 1977
  • A. sp. Young, 1997

Arandaspis prionotolepis is an extinct species of jawless fish that lived in the Ordovician period, about 480 to 470 million years ago. Its remains were found in the Stairway Sandstone near Alice Springs, Australia in 1959, but it was not determined that they were the oldest known vertebrates until the late 1960s. Arandaspis is named after a local Indigenous Australian people, the Aranda (now currently called Arrernte).

  1. ^ "Pteraspidomorphi". Retrieved 28 October 2013.