Hyperoartia or Petromyzontida is a disputed group of

vertebrate Vertebrates () comprise all animal taxa within the subphylum Vertebrata () ( chordates with backbones), including all mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish. Vertebrates represent the overwhelming majority of the phylum Chordata, with ...

s that includes the modern

lamprey Lampreys (sometimes inaccurately called lamprey eels) are an ancient extant lineage of jawless fish of the order Petromyzontiformes , placed in the superclass Cyclostomata. The adult lamprey may be characterized by a toothed, funnel-like s ...

s and their

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

relatives. Examples of hyperoartians from early in their fossil record are '' Endeiolepis'' and '' Euphanerops'' (which possessed a calcified branchial basket), fish-like animals with hypocercal tails that lived during the Late

Devonian The Devonian ( ) is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic era, spanning 60.3 million years from the end of the Silurian, million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Carboniferous, Mya. It is named after Devon, England, wh ...

Period. Some paleontologists still place these forms among the "

ostracoderm Ostracoderms () are the armored jawless fish of the Paleozoic Era. The term does not often appear in classifications today because it is paraphyletic (excluding jawed fishes) (may also be polyphyletic if anaspids are closer to cyclostomes) and ...

s" (jawless armored fishes) of the

class Class or The Class may refer to: Common uses not otherwise categorized * Class (biology), a taxonomic rank * Class (knowledge representation), a collection of individuals or objects * Class (philosophy), an analytical concept used differently ...

Anaspida Anaspida ("without shield") is an extinct group of primitive jawless vertebrates that lived primarily during the Silurian period, and became extinct soon after the start of the Devonian. They were classically regarded as the ancestors of lampre ...

, but this is increasingly considered an artificial arrangement based on ancestral traits. Placement of this group among the jawless vertebrates is a matter of dispute. While today enough fossil diversity is known to make a close relationship among the "ostracoderms" unlikely, this has muddied the issue of the Hyperoartia's closest relatives. Traditionally the group was placed in a superclass

Cyclostomata Cyclostomi, often referred to as Cyclostomata , is a group of vertebrates that comprises the living jawless fishes: the lampreys and hagfishes. Both groups have jawless mouths with horny epidermal structures that function as teeth called cer ...

together with the Myxini (hagfishes). More recently, it has been proposed that the Myxini are more basal among the skull-bearing chordates, while the Hyperoartia are retained among vertebrates. But even though this may be correct, the lampreys represent one of the oldest divergences of the vertebrate lineage, and whether they are better united with some "ostracoderms" in the Cephalaspidomorphi, or not closer to these than to e.g. to other "ostracoderms" of the

Pteraspidomorphi Pteraspidomorphi is an extinct class of early jawless fish. They have long been regarded as closely related or even ancestral to jawed vertebrates, but the few characteristics they share with the latter are now considered as basal traits for all ...

, or even the long-extinct

conodont Conodonts ( Greek ''kōnos'', " cone", + ''odont'', "tooth") are an extinct group of agnathan (jawless) vertebrates resembling eels, classified in the class Conodonta. For many years, they were known only from their tooth-like oral elements, whi ...

s, is still to be resolved. Even the very existence of the class Hyperoartia is disputed, with some analyses favoring a treatment of the "basal Hyperoartia" as a

monophyletic In cladistics for a group of organisms, monophyly is the condition of being a clade—that is, a group of taxa composed only of a common ancestor (or more precisely an ancestral population) and all of its lineal descendants. Monophyletic gr ...

lineage

Jamoytiiformes Jamoytiiformes is an extinct order of prehistoric jawless fish in the superclass Anaspidomorphi Anaspidomorphi (anaspidomorphs) is an extinct superclass of jawless fish. According to the newer taxonomy based on the work of Nelson, Grande and W ...

that may in fact be very close to the ancestral jawed vertebrates. The only hyperoartians surviving today are lampreys, classified in the Petromyzontiformes. The discovery of the fossil '' Priscomyzon'' pushed back the oldest known occurrence of true lampreys to the Late Devonian. The evidence of phylogeny, however, suggests the lamprey lineage diverged much earlier from other vertebrates, rather than arising from among the "ostracoderms". The origin of Hyperoartia may therefore extend back to the early

Paleozoic The Paleozoic (or Palaeozoic) Era is the earliest of three geologic eras of the Phanerozoic Eon. The name ''Paleozoic'' ( ;) was coined by the British geologist Adam Sedgwick in 1838 by combining the Greek words ''palaiós'' (, "old") and ...

, if not earlier. Mayomyzon NT small

Taxonomy and Phylogeny

Placed in this group are at present: Mikko's Phylogeny Archive, Nelson, Grande & Wilson 2016 and van der Laan 2018. * Clade Hyperoartia Müller 1844 ** Family † Hardistiellidae Halstead, 1993 ** Family † Mayomyzonidae Bardack, 1971 ** Family † Pipisciidae Halstead, 1993 ** Genus †'' Mesomyzon'' Chang, Zhang & Miao 2006 ** Genus †'' Priscomyzon'' Gess, Coates & Rubidge 2006 ** Order Petromyzontiformes (Lampreys) *** Family Geotriidae (pouched lamprey) *** Family Mordaciidae (southern topeyed lampreys) *** Family Petromyzontidae Risso, 1827 (Northern lampreys)

References

Fish classes {{jawless-fish-stub