Conodont

The conodonts survived for about 300 million years–the middle of the Cambrian Era to the beginning of the Jurassic–but I’d never heard of them until today. Their “elements” were discovered in the 1850s but no one was sure what they were until the 1980s.

At first their “elements” were thought to be teeth from jawless fish like lampreys and hagfish. Then they were believed to be worm jaws, sexual organs, plants, crustaceans, mollusks, minerals, and many other guesses until fossils of their soft tissue were discovered.

Their elements were teeth of jawless fish all along.

Although extinct, the different types of elements in layers of fossils help indicate how old the fossil is.

This is my reconstruction of a conodont. No one knows exactly what they looked like so it’s possible that I’m dead right about their appearance.