Who Discovered the Placoderm?

In the late 1920s, Dr. Erik Stensiö, at the Swedish Museum of Natural History in Stockholm, established the details of placoderm anatomy and identified them as true jawed fishes related to sharks. He took fossil specimens with well-preserved skulls and ground them away, one tenth of a millimeter at a time.

What was the first placoderm?

Fossil record

The earliest identifiable placoderm fossils are from China and date to the early Silurian. At that time, they were already differentiated into antiarchs and arthrodires, as well as other, more primitive, groups. Earlier fossils of basal Placodermi have not yet been discovered.

When did the placoderm first appear?

Placoderms existed throughout the Devonian Period (about 416 million to 359 million years ago), but only two species persisted into the succeeding Carboniferous Period. During the Devonian they were a dominant group, occurring in all continents except South America in a variety of marine and freshwater sediments.