We entered the silurian period about 433.8-419.2 mya but fasted forward to the uppermost epoch of the silurian: the prídolí epoch.
Here in what's now the UK, a group of cephalaspis are swimming away from brontoscorpios. these giant scorpions are one of the largest known scorpions from 33 cm
To a meter (3.3 feet) or more...
The jaw evolved from repeating pharyngeal segements first present in chordate ancestors as respiratory structures.later giving rise to cartilaginous branchial baskets of jawless fish and the bones and cartilages of the facial,upper & lower jaw,jaw support and posterior gill or throat structures.
This is entelognathus primordialis, 20 cm long .one of the earliest jawed vertabrates.the silurian period saw the first jawed animals to ever lived.it's fossils are found in what's now: quijing,yunnan,china
It's name means: complete jaw
The creature is likely a carnivore feeding on smaller fish to survive. he's seen peacefully swimming in the silurian ocean alongside small fishes and cephalopods
Some 3 different trilobite species called aulacopleura, burmastus, odontopleura are crawling on the sea floor
And again...the trilobites survived extinction.
When a fish swims above them...
Fanjingshania revonata was the oldest acanthodian of the silurian that lived in the lower silurian 439 mya, the creature was named after famous UNESCO world heritage site fangjingshan. it's really a bizzare species about two-and-a-half feet long the oldest jawed ancestor
Qianosus duplicis is also a jawed vertabrate based on disarriculated teeth of the lower silurian.
In other parts of south china.
This predator is ready to ambush it's prey...
But it's not qianodus duplicis or other basal jawed fish.
Psarolepis romeri is another basal bony jawed fish from the uppermost silurian period to the very start of the devonian period which lived around 419-410 mya
The creature chases it's prey. it will dispatch the small vertabrate. psarolepis bites it in the side & killed it anyway...
Back at the UK
We saw an anglaspis heintzi.
It lived from the late silurian to the early devonian era. with other cyanthasidiforms individuals.
A pterygotus was watching her from a distance
Pterygotus are the largest eurypterid but that title now goes to jaekelopterus who reached a length about 2.5 meters and pterygotus was only 1.75 meters in length.
She's burried in the sand waiting for something to attack on...
The anglaspis dosen't know what's comming but what protected her is her body armour. theres little known about analaspis since it's not really a well-known species.
While The silurian is the shortest period of the paleozoic but it also saw the start of terrestrial arthropods, meaning tetrapods came on land
Later...
@Nizaluddin
