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TREMATAPSIS

TREMATAPSIS This early osteotracan had the typical flattened body and ventral mouth of a bottom-dweller. Its eyes and single nostril were on the top of the head, near the midline. It fed by sucking up tiny food particles from the seabed, using the gill muscles in the throat as a suction pump. The bony head shield extended half- way along the body. Since it was made of one piece of bone, it is unlikely that it became larger as the animal grew. Paleontologists think that osteotracans had an unarmored larva, and that the bony sheild developed only when the fish was full-grown. ©1988 Marshall Editions Limited .