So in that regard, I'm probably representing the "minimum" body-length-to-width ratio, and Scott representing the "maximum", meaning if his proves correct and mine false, then it's likely this animal would be larger.
An attacker’s powerful bite snapped and folded the edge of this Dunkleosteus head shield like a crushed taco shell (green arrow). There are at least a dozen gouges or punctures (highlighted in red) probably caused by the attacking Dunkleosteus’ fangs. Overall, despite these features, the plates are covered in skin and scales just like the rest of the body (though clear shrinkwrapping means they remain clearly visible). These two specimens are based on mandibles, each larger than the other specimen. CMNH 5936 was not mentioned before, their best estimate for it is 30% bigger than CMNH 5768 or a skull ~94cm long, not even this one will reach 6m using the proportions of their reconstruction. Normal fish have heads surrounded by plates as well, and many also have teeth that fuse into a beak remarkably similar to Dunkleosteus' beak (puffer fish in case you were wondering). Long story short, it appears I simply erred to option "X", and Scott "Y". It could reach full gape in 60 milliseconds. SO, instead of strictly picking option A, I erred to an evolutionary assumption- Dunkleosteus would have evolved from something more like a "typical" placoderm, and largely changed "shape". It tends to eat the Island's water-dwelling crustaceans trawling the seabed, as it is not fast enough to catch most of the smaller fish. I attribute this discrepancy to the equations they used, UJP in sharks only measures the toothrow not the whole jaw perimeter up to the joints as they did with, so it makes sense that this equation will overestimate it, this is something they do not address. No idea, certainly a lot more than a similarly-sized Whale Shark would, that's for sure. Given that the process appears alarmingly similar to Dunkleosteus' beak, I'd say the most likely answer is "Dunkleosteus was probably like the Puffer fish, and had an exposed beak". X- positioning the posterior body so that the pelvic fins are immediately posterior to the ventral plate results in a body that is vastly, vastly shorter relative to thorax-width- which was otherwise a very precise ratio. It is a fairly large fish, covered head to tail in armored plates, with incredibly powerful jaws. Today's hours: 10am to 5pm |
UPDATE! And nice observation about the tooth row issue- I hadn't actually noticed that one.
While I largely took the first option (not quite though, see below **), I strongly endorse reading that study as well, as its findings are very difficult to dismiss and present an excellent counter-argument to simply taking Option A. I've actually made a point of trying to conform to this analysis to quite some extent (though it appears I've found ways they both converge). Finally, you might notice this reconstruction is shorter than Scott Hartman's.
With that end design, the Dunkleosteus would be disproportionately front-heavy, with a disproportionately tiny and weak tail for its size and a tailfin that would be trapped in the slipstream of the giant head at all times, being basically useless (when literally almost any other fish with a rounded cross-section has a tailfin that is vastly taller than itself, or else an extremely long tail). It was a heavily armoured fish and was the largest predator in its ecosystem. Shark heads are compact and streamlined relative to the girth of their bodies, and their ability to conceal their teeth neatly inside their heads only helps further the streamlining. This is based on a noticeable difference between Dunk and other Placoderms in "posteriorality" of the keel and the rearmost part of that ventral (pelvic?)
Y- positioning the posterior body to begin immediately behind the keel, however, results in a very large gap between the pelvic fin and that ventral plate; which was otherwise a solidly consistent feature among Placoderms with very little variability. (see lips**). Dunkleosteus is surprisingly combat-oriented for a fish. The first and most obvious place to start is the head. One of the first jawed animals on the planet, this prehistoric armored fish attacked its prey with bone-crunching ferocity.Muscle Man: This fish's body was bulky and extremely muscular. Just wanted to point out that most of the shark's jaw is hidden beneath the smooth conical shape while at rest. Either way, for me it was choosing the unusual maximum size over clear physical impossibility. The movement was so fast it created suction that pulled prey into the fish’s mouth.
The 'smaller' specimen is in fact, one of the largest specimens ever found, and an exceptionally large one at that.
Share your thoughts, experiences and the tales behind the art. A dunkleosteus with a similar-sized jaw width but also a similar length would have none of these attributes, but a Dunkleosteus that conformed more closely to a typical Placoderm most certainly would. (Note, the old images of Dunkleosteus are still here, I'll add a note on my old image to check this one out instead).
That said, in defense of "A" there are a number of consistencies among Placoderms that not only suggest this reconstruction is reasonable, but would argue are beneficial for the animal and additionally partly adheres to the niche dependencies of "B", though greatly increasing the length.
The larger specimen I cited from A.J. I don't know the fossil name but it was described in Snively, Anderson and Ryan's (2009) study "FUNCTIONAL AND ONTOGENETIC IMPLICATIONS OF BITE STRESS IN ARTHRODIRE PLACODERMS". A portion of the plate (the large red area) is missing, probably snapped off by a bite. Now for my choice in post-cranial reconstruction. Thus, I simply replicated the shrink-wrapping of typical fish (I chose Goliath Groupers, Pufferfish and Parrotfish as they seemed to have the most in common in terms of anatomical features (beaks or very large mouths). Naturally, it seems safe to say certain features carried across otherwise VERY different Placoderms. There is fossil evidence that the attacking fish may have focused on its opponent’s vulnerable gill area, to inflict maximum damage while avoid the crushing and shearing power of its prey’s jaws. On that note, the increased length of my reconstruction (entirely based on a larger tail and larger, thicker tailfin) adds not only substantially more locomotive power to the animal, but also makes it more back-heavy; both of which counteract any deficiencies the heavy skull would impose. At its largest, it could reach around 9 meters (30 ft) long.
I think it's a bit deceiving and can give the impression of a smaller jaw size.
It's a very thick fish, while the Mosasaurus is fairly slim. Apr 15, 2017 - Explore Erick's board "Dunkleosteus" on Pinterest. 2- The same wasn't quite true of Dunkleosteus. The result is a sleek, long animal with a large thick tail and massive tailfin for its size, small lightweight pointed nose and large pectoral fins. Well I mean a 10 meter Dunkleosteus is estimated to weigh 4 tons. Yup. Either way, I suppose treat it as the absolute maximum model while remaining firmly constrained to known proportions.
The alternative of designing a bottom-up "generalized Placoderm" posterior with corrective distortions to fit Dunkleosteus' unique thorax, actually appears to result in an animal more "shark-like" in its relative bodily proportions and basic capabilities, but grew to ridiculously huge sizes that aren't too common among oceanic macropredators throughout history. 3- unlike other Placoderms, whose thoraic plates infer a sharp tail-ward tapering, Dunkleosteus' plates seem to just, point backwards, inferring that Dunkleosteus retains more consistent body proportions within its tail for a greater run of its length before tapering (makes sense, it infers a more weighty posterior that would likely counterbalance the larger, denser head). As far as I can see there really isn't any such thing as a fish with real soft-tissue lips. Each half of Dunkleosteus’ lower jaw had a large, fang-like cusp for piercing and grasping its prey, and a self-sharpening cutting area that functioned like a scissor blade, shearing through tissue as the fish bit down.
There is more potential for error simply because Dunkleosteus jaws tend to change proportions quite dramatically as the animal grows and matures, so best to treat this as the most extreme possible maximum estimated size (though still quite possible). In the case of Dunkleosteus, either of the following produce glaring inconsistencies to typical Placoderm anatomy. Dunkleosteus loricaruptor is a very strange creature. So Scheele WASN'T far off when he wrote that Dinicthys was 40 feet long! Yeah, my problem with the equations are that the animal resulting from it is uniquely disproportionate to any other large pelagic animal, but uniquely impractical at basic swimming, especially when erring morphology along phylogenetic generalizations results in an animal that is perfectly practical and would be able to function like any other fish.
These parallel bite traces on a bony plate of Dunkleosteus’ skull probably were left by a small, primitive shark from the genus Cladoselache.
Firstly, let's talk size- starting with the physical specimens I referred to, as you're probably wondering about the monstrously up-sized "faded" specimen. However I did notice a glaring discrepancy between sharks and Dunkleosteus in terms of jaw measurement- sharks have smaller, more pointed heads for their body size (and jaw size), and seemingly according to the image, less girth relative to jaw size as well. The position of the rearmost part of the dorsal and ventral plates were substantially different to the others as well, giving a vastly reduced overall body-length-to-girth ratio (curiously, coincidentally reinforcing Ferrón, Martínez-Pérez and Botella's (2017) arguments. The sheer size difference and megalodon's brute strength give it the edge, even if Dunkleosteus has a much thicker skull and those bony jaws.
Boucot's "Evolutionary Paleobiolgoy of Behaviour and Coevolution (from Nature). Four hundred million years ago, long before the dinosaurs walked the Earth, dunkleosteus was at the top of the world's food chain. Dunkleosteus was a large, predatory placoderm from the Devonian.
This illustration shows the complex hinge actions as Dunkleosteus’ jaw swung open.
Adding further to this model is that Placoderm skulls tend to widen and narrow if the tail suddenly narrows.... the sharper the contraction of the shape, the faster the tail narrows. The other method is the comprehensive approach of calculating bodyshape and proportions from convergent predatory niches rather than phylogenetically-closer but ecologically-dissimilar Placoderms, as employed by Ferrón, Martínez-Pérez and Botella (2017). Dunkleosteus was a large Placoderm (arthropod fish) that lived in the late Devonian period, about 380–360 million years ago.
The features we associate with lips are actually the jaws, with internal skeletal structures.
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