Campodus

Campodus
Temporal range: Carboniferous, Visean–Bashkirian
Life restoration
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Chondrichthyes
Subclass: Holocephali
Order: †Eugeneodontida
Clade: †Caseodontoidea
Genus: †Campodus
Koninck, 1844
Species[1]
  • C. agassizianus Koninck, 1844
  • C. corrugatus Newberry and Worthen, 1870
  • C. scitulus Saint John and Worthen, 1875
  • C. virginianus Saint John and Worthen, 1875

Campodus is an extinct genus of eugeneodont holocephalans from the Carboniferous.[1][2] Likely one of the earliest and most basal caseodontoids, it can be characterized by its broad, ridge-ornamented crushing teeth made of various types of dentine. The type species, C. agassizianus, was originally described in 1844 based on a small number of teeth from the Namurian of Belgium.[3]

Additional fossils have been referred to the genus. These include Belgian specimens referred by Lohest (1884), fossils from Missouri referred by Zangerl (1981), and symphyseal tooth-whorls from Nebraska and Kansas referred by Eastman (1902).[4] The tooth whorls were given their own species, C. variabilis. They shared some similarity to a massive "Agassizodus" jaw apparatus found in Osage, Kansas and described by St. John & Worthen (1875). This has led some authors to the conclusion that Agassizodus and Campodus were synonyms.[5] However, others note that clearly identifiable Campodus teeth have not been found in the same areas from which Agassizodus was originally described.[4] Ginter (2018) concluded that Eastman's "C. variabilis" and St. John & Worthen (1875)'s "Agassizodus" belonged to neither Campodus nor Agassizodus, and instead represented a new unnamed genus. Ginter additionally referred a specimen from Derbyshire, England to Campodus agassizianus.[3]

  1. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference fossilworks was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Hay, O.P. (1902). Bibliography and Catalogue of the Fossil Vertebrata of North America. Bulletin of the United States Geological Survey. Vol. 179.
  3. ^ a b Ginter, Michał (2018). "The dentition of a eugeneodontiform shark from the Lower Pennsylvanian of Derbyshire, UK" (PDF). Acta Palaeontologica Polonica. 63 (4): 725–735. doi:10.4202/app.00533.2018.
  4. ^ a b Zangerl, R. (1981). Chondrichthyes I – Paleozoic Elasmobranchii. Handbook of Paleoichthyology. Stuttgart: Gustav Fischer Verlag. pp. i–iii, 1–115.
  5. ^ Eaton, Theodore H. (1 October 1962). "Teeth of Edestid Sharks". University of Kansas Publications, Museum of Natural History. 12 (8): 347–362.