Named By: | Agassiz in 1839 |
Time Period: | Silurian |
Location: | Estonia, Norway, Russia, Sweden, Ukraine & United Kingdom |
Size: | Between 15 and 20 centimetres long |
Diet: | Carnivore |
Fossil(s): | Multiple individuals |
Classification: | | Chordata | Agnatha | Thelodonti | Thelodontidae | |
Thelodus is an extinct genus of thelodont agnathan that lived during the Silurian period. Fossils have been found worldwide. Unlike many thelodonts, species of Thelodus are known not only from scales, but from impressions in rocks. Some species, such as the Canadian T. inauditus, are thought to be comparable in size to other thelodonts, i.e., from 5 to 15 centimeters in length. The scales of the type species, T. parvidens (syn. T. macintoshi) of Silurian Great Britain, however, reach the size of coins, and, if proportioned like other thelodonts, such as Loganellia, the living animal would have been about one meter in length.