''Qataraspis'' (meaning "

Qatar Qatar, officially the State of Qatar, is a country in West Asia. It occupies the Geography of Qatar, Qatar Peninsula on the northeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East; it shares Qatar–Saudi Arabia border, its sole land b ...

shield") is an extinct genus of primitive

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 ...

that lived sometime around the

Late Devonian The Devonian ( ) is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic era during the Phanerozoic eon, spanning 60.3 million years from the end of the preceding Silurian period at million years ago ( Ma), to the beginning of the succeeding ...

in what is now

.Denison, R. (1978). Placodermi. In H.-P. Schultze (ed.), Handbook of Palaeoichthyology 2:1-128 The type species is ''Q. deprofundis''.

Discovery and naming

The

holotype A holotype (Latin: ''holotypus'') is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of s ...

, NHMUK PV P41933 and NHMUK PV P41934 (an almost complete right anterior lateral plate), was discovered during the 1950s in

by the

Iraq Petroleum Company The Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC), formerly known as the Turkish Petroleum Company (TPC), is an oil company that had a virtual monopoly on all oil exploration and production in Iraq between 1925 and 1961. It was jointly owned by some of the world ...

within the wide

borehole A borehole is a narrow shaft bored in the ground, either vertically or horizontally. A borehole may be constructed for many different purposes, including the extraction of water ( drilled water well and tube well), other liquids (such as petr ...

DK 68 at a depth of , making it the deepest known occurrence of a fossil vertebrate to date.White, E.I. (1969). The deepest vertebrate fossil and other arctolepid fishes. ''Biological Journal of the Linnean Society'' 1(3): 293-310 The holotype was sent to

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

to be studied and ''Qataraspis deprofundis'' was named and described by White (1969). Casts of the holotype also exist, under specimen numbers PV P 75116 and PV P 75117.Natural History Museum (2014). Collection specimens ata set Natural History Museum. https://doi.org/10.5519/0002965

Classification

White (1969) classified ''Qataraspis'' as a basal member of the

Arthrodira Arthrodira (Greek for "jointed neck") is an 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 penetrating most marine eco ...

. This classification was followed through by Denison (1978) in a review of the

Placodermi Placoderms (from Ancient Greek πλάξ 'plax'', ''plakos plate' and δέρμα 'dermaskin') are vertebrate animals of the class Placodermi, an extinct group of prehistoric fish known from Paleozoic fossils during the Silurian and the De ...

, where it was placed in the

Arctolepididae Arthrodira (Greek for "jointed neck") is an 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 penetrating most marine eco ...

References

Late Devonian first appearances Late Devonian animals Fossil taxa described in 1969 {{Placoderm-stub