''Braunosteus schmidti'' is a medium-sized selenosteid

arthrodire Arthrodira (Greek for "jointed neck") is an Order (biology), order of extinct armored, jawed fishes of the class Placodermi that flourished in the Devonian period before their sudden extinction, surviving for about 50 million years and penetratin ...

placoderm Placoderms (from Ancient Greek πλάξ 'plax'', ''plakos'''Plate (animal anatomy), plate' and δέρμα 'derma'''skin') are vertebrate animals of the class (biology), class Placodermi, an extinct group of prehistoric fish known from Pal ...

known from the Upper

Frasnian The Frasnian is one of two faunal stages in the Late Devonian Period. It lasted from million years ago to million years ago. It was preceded by the Givetian Stage and followed by the Famennian Stage. Major reef-building was under way during ...

Kellwasserkalk facies of Late

Devonian The Devonian ( ) is a period (geology), geologic period and system (stratigraphy), system of the Paleozoic era (geology), era during the Phanerozoic eon (geology), eon, spanning 60.3 million years from the end of the preceding Silurian per ...

Bad Wildungen Bad Wildungen () is a state-run spa and a small town in Waldeck-Frankenberg district in Hesse, Germany. It is located on the German Timber-Frame Road. Geography Location Bad Wildungen lies in the eastern foothills of the Kellerwald range in the ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. ''B. schmidti'' has a broad skull about 9 centimeters long, and a short, but pointed rostrum. Its appearance is very similar to that of the basal selenosteid ''

Pachyosteus ''Pachyosteus'' is an extinct monospecific genus of medium-sized selenosteid arthrodire placoderm known from the Upper Frasnian Kellwasserkalk facies of Late Devonian Bad Wildungen, Germany and from the Famennian portions of the Holy Cross Mou ...

''. It was originally placed within a monotypic family, "Braunosteidae," by

Erik Stensiö Prof Erik Helge Osvald Stensiö HFRSE (2 October 1891 – 11 January 1984), né Andersson, was an influential Swedish paleozoologist and founder of the so-called "Stockholm School" of vertebrate paleontology. He later took his new surnam ...

in 1959. Obruchev (1964) and Miles (1969) placed it within the Trematosteidae due to the presence of a postpineal fenestra. Denison (1978) has ''B. schmidti'' placed within Selenosteidae, noting that other arthrodires in addition to trematosteids have postpineal fenestrae, as well as similar anatomy of the orbital and suborbital plates, and that its scapulo-coracoid bone is largely identical to those of ''Pachyosteus'' and '' Enseosteus''.

References

Selenosteidae Placoderms of Europe Fossil taxa described in 1959 {{Placoderm-stub