Conodont Totally Explained

Everything about Conodonts totally explained

Late Cambrian to Late Triassic | image = ConodontZICA.png | image_width = 250px | image_caption = Reconstruction of a Conodont | regnum = Animalia | phylum = Chordata | subphylum = Vertebrata | classis = Conodonta | classis_authority = | subdivision_ranks = Groups | subdivision = Protoconodonta
Paraconodonta
Euconodonta }} Conodonts are extinct chordates resembling eels, classified in the class Conodonta. For many years, they were known only from tooth-like microfossils now called conodont elements, found in isolation. The animal is also called conodontophora (conodont bearers) to avoid ambiguity.

Description

The eleven known fossil imprints of conodont animals depict an eel-like creature with 15 or, more rarely, 19 elements forming a bilaterally symmetrical array in the head. This array comprised a feeding apparatus radically different from the jaws of modern animals. There are three forms of teeth, coniform cones, ramiform bars, and pectiniform platforms, which may have performed different roles.
The organisms range from a centimeter or so to the giant Promissum, 40cm in length. It is now widely agreed that conodonts had large eyes, fins with fin rays, chevron-shaped muscles and a notochord.

Ecology

The "teeth" of some conodonts have been interpreted as filter-feeding apparatuses, filtering out plankton from the water and passing it down the throat. Others have been interpreted as a "grasping and crushing array".
They are considered by Milsom and Rigby to be vertebrates similar in appearance to modern hagfish and lampreys,

Conodont teeth fossils

For many years, conodonts were known only from enigmatic tooth-like microfossils, which occur commonly but always in isolation, and were not associated with any other fossil. These phosphatic microfossils are now termed "conodont elements" to avoid confusion. They are widely used in biostratigraphy. Conodont elements are also used as paleothermometers, a proxy for thermal alteration in the host rock. This is because under higher temperatures the phosphate undergoes predictable and permanent color changes, measured with the conodont alteration index. This has made them useful for petroleum exploration where they're known, in rocks dating from the Cambrian to the Late Triassic.
It wasn't until early 1980s that the conodont teeth were found in association with fossils of the host organism, in a konservat lagerstätte. This is because most of the conodont animal was soft-bodied, thus everything but the teeth were not suited for preservation under normal circumstances.

Further Information

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