OBJECT DOSSIER · SMITHSONIAN OPEN ACCESS

Placoderm fish — Bothriolepis canadensis

SAGE Museum Deep Time scientific dossier

Artist / Creator

Hectonichus

Date / Period

Late Devonian · Late Devonian.

Object Type

armored fish fossil

Medium

original_fossil

About This Object

Geologic period: Late Devonian

Age: Late Devonian.

Feeding: Detailed diet is not assigned from this specimen alone.

Locomotion: Aquatic vertebrate.

Body plan: Armored head and trunk with jointed pectoral appendages.

Evidence: Dermal armor and skeletal anatomy are directly preserved.

Why it matters: Bothriolepis shows the extraordinary diversity of armored jawed fishes that flourished during the Devonian.

Plain Language Identity: An armored Late Devonian placoderm fish belonging to the antiarch group.

What You Are Looking At: Mineralized dermal armor from a fish whose head and front body were enclosed by bony plates.

Ecosystem: Late Devonian aquatic ecosystem.

Preservation: Mineralized dermal bone.

Formation: Escuminac Formation is represented among Smithsonian specimens.

Find Location: Quebec, Canada.

Open Questions: Do not reconstruct behavior solely from the armor.

Source Urls: https://naturalhistory.si.edu/visit/virtual-tour/current-exhibits/deep-time-virtual-tour-fossil-list; https://www.si.edu/object/nmnhpaleobiology_3423796

Enrichment Method: SAGE curated research pass; title and scientific name matched; evidence separated from inference

Scientific name: Bothriolepis canadensis

Evidence / representation: comparative_exact_taxon_visual

Why It Is In This SAGE Exhibit

comparative_exact_taxon_visual

Oceans Before Dinosaurs: The Rise of Complex Animal Life.

Provenance

Smithsonian Deep Time source scene: Early Life in the Ocean

Visual source institution: Wikimedia Commons

Exhibition History

Included in the SAGE Museum Dinosaurs & Deep Time staging exhibit.

Collection & Credit

Media license: CC BY-SA 3.0

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0

Subjects & Themes

Bothriolepis canadensis Late Devonian armored fish fossil Early Life in the Ocean Oceans Before Dinosaurs

ORIGINAL COLLECTION SOURCE

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