The affinities of conodonts—new evidence from the Carboniferous of Edinburgh, Scotland

Abstract

Three new specimens which preserve the soft parts of conodonts are described from the Lower Carboniferous of Granton, Edinburgh. The animal was apparently laterally flattened in life and the somites were V-shaped. The nature of the preserved axial lines is equivocal; some may represent the walls of the gut. The elements of one of the new specimens show that it does not belong to Clydagnathus, to which the other soft-bodied specimen from Granton was tentatively assigned. The possibility of a relationship between the euconodonts and the Chaetognatha is discounted. Nor do the conodonts constitute a phylum, but are a separate group of primitive jawless craniates.