''Nochelaspis'' is an extinct genus of

galeaspid Galeaspida (from Latin, 'Helmet shields') is an extinct taxon of jawless marine and freshwater fish. The name is derived from ''galea'', the Latin word for ''helmet'', and refers to their massive bone shield on the head. Galeaspida lived in shallo ...

vertebrate Vertebrates () are animals with a vertebral column (backbone or spine), and a cranium, or skull. The vertebral column surrounds and protects the spinal cord, while the cranium protects the brain. The vertebrates make up the subphylum Vertebra ...

s. It lived during the Lochkovian period in

Lower Devonian The Early Devonian is the first of three epochs comprising the Devonian period, corresponding to the Lower Devonian series. It lasted from and began with the Lochkovian Stage , which was followed by the Pragian from and then by the Emsian, whic ...

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(in today southeastern

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and northern

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Qujing Ancient Fish Kingdom reappears 420 million years ago, the largest roaming simple fish-Scientific Exploration-cnBeta.COM
21 October 2021. Retrieved 06 November 2021.).

Description

''Nochelaspis'' is the largest eugaleaspid so far described. It is known from a head plate that was long, wide and 0.8 cm (0.3 in) thick. It is an element of the Early Vertebrate fauna in the Xishancun Formation, and lived among polybranchiaspid galeaspids,

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 ...

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 ...

s, petalichthyids and

osteichthyan Osteichthyes ( ; ), also known as osteichthyans or commonly referred to as the bony fish, is a Biodiversity, diverse clade of vertebrate animals that have endoskeletons primarily composed of bone tissue. They can be contrasted with the Chondricht ...

References

Galeaspida Prehistoric jawless fish genera Fossil taxa described in 1992 {{Paleo-jawless-fish-stub