''Mizia'' is a genus of primitive

antiarch Antiarchi ("opposite anus") is an order of heavily armored placoderms. The antiarchs form the second-most successful group of placoderms after the arthrodires in terms of numbers of species and range of environments. The order's name was coin ...

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 ...

found in

Emsian The Emsian is one of three faunal stages in the Early Devonian Epoch. It lasted from 410.62 ±1.95 million years ago to 393.47 ±0.99 million years ago. It was preceded by the Pragian Stage and followed by the Eifelian Stage. It is named after ...

-aged marine strata of Early

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 ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

Species

''Mizia longhuaensis''

The only known specimen is of a mostly complete thoracic armor from the

Xujiachong Formation The Xujiachong Formation is an early Devonian formation from China. It preserves a wide range of plant and fish fossils, many being only known from this formation. Paleobiota Plants Animals References

Devonian China Devonia ...

Qujing Qujing ( zh, c= , p=Qūjìng) is a prefecture-level city in the east of Yunnan province, China, bordering Guizhou province to the north and east and the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region to the south; thus, it was called "Key between Yunnan and Gui ...

Yunnan Yunnan; is an inland Provinces of China, province in Southwestern China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 47.2 million (as of 2020). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the Chinese provinces ...

. The armor is very similar to that of '' Yunnanolepis'', but is distinguished by a unique floral pattern of raised ridges and grooves radiating from a point at the center of the dorsal shield of the thoracic armor. A similar pattern is seen on the thoracic armor of the

Vietnam Vietnam, officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV), is a country at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of about and a population of over 100 million, making it the world's List of countries and depende ...

ese '' Vukhuclepis''. ''M. longhuaensis''' armor is further ornamented with small tubercles.

''Mizia parvus''

Originally described as '' Yunnanolepis parvus''. Min Zhu reexamined specimens of ''Y. parvus'', and found the armor, in addition to being rather different from the armor seen in ''Yunnanolepis'', to be more anatomically similar to the holotype of ''M. longhuaensis'', and placed it into ''Mizia''.

References

Placoderm genera Placoderms of Asia Antiarchi Prehistoric animals of China {{placoderm-stub