Aspidichthys
genus of fishes
Aspidichthys ("shield fish") is a genus of large, distinctively tuberculated arthrodire placoderm of uncertain affinities from Upper Devonian marine strata in the Eastern United States and Europe.
Anatomy
The dermal surfaces of the thick bones are decorated with an irregular arrangement of large, rounded tubercles. Some specimens may display patterns of "imperfectly concentric rows." The long median dorsal plate is subrectangular in shape, and is gently bent along the midline, which tends to have a corresponding low ridge, and a posteriorly placed carinal process on the dorsal surface. In 1938, Schmidt made a restoration of A. ingens as a large-bodied, small-headed arthrodire with tremendous orbits after the now-lost holotype of that species.
Taxonomy
The taxonomic relationships of the genus remain uncertain. Miles, 1973, suggested the genus was related to the Euleptaspidae, though, this is disproved through noting the drastically different proportions of the nuchal and median dorsal plates. Schmidt's restoration of the animal as having a large body and a small head has led some paleontologists to suspect a relationship with the holonematids. However, this relationship is also doubtful, as the holonematids' median dorsal plates differ from those of Aspidichthys by the former being more narrower, having a low keel, and having no carinal process.
Species
A. clavatus is the type species, and is known from distinctive fragments found in the Frasnian-aged Huron and Olentangy Shales of Ohio. It has a "gently folded" median dorsal plate, and has a low crest placed on the posterior end of the median dorsal's midline.
“Aspidichthys” enters the record as genus of fishes. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Aspidichthys, genus and fishes can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Datasets, specimens, observations and peer-reviewed methods provide the appropriate test for the technical claims summarized here. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q16962270. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1938 and 1973.
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This entry incorporates text from “Aspidichthys” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.