Groenlandaspis Pronunciation

Fun Facts

• ✓Groenlandaspis lived between approximately 382 and 347 million years ago, meaning it survived across a massive stretch of the Late Devonian and into the earliest Carboniferous period.
• ✓Fossils of Groenlandaspis have been confirmed from at least eight countries and territories including Greenland, South Africa, the United Kingdom, Australia, Antarctica, Belgium, and the United States, making it one of the most geographically widespread Devonian vertebrates ever found.
• ✓Groenlandaspis belonged to a group called arthrodires, which were armored jawed fishes that dominated the seas and rivers of the Devonian period, a time so packed with fish evolution that scientists nicknamed it the Age of Fishes.
• ✓The discovery of Groenlandaspis fossils in Antarctica was a landmark moment for paleontology, proving that during the Late Devonian the landmasses now frozen at the South Pole were warm enough to support thriving communities of fish.
• ✓Groenlandaspis was a member of the family Gronlandaspididae, a group of flattened, bottom-dwelling arthrodires whose shield-like bony armor covered the front half of their bodies like a suit of medieval plate mail.