

THE LOWER DEVONIAN FISHES OF GEMUNDEN. 72fr 



study the specimens in the Museum of Natural History in Berlin, and also to Professor 

 Schmeisser for allowing me to figure three examples belonging to the collection of the 

 Prussian Geological Survey. 



Apart from my outline restorations of Drepanaspis, I am not aware that any of the 

 vertebrate remains occurring at Gemiinden have hitherto been figured. 



Description of Species. 



Order HETEPOSTRACI, Lankester. 



Family Drepanaspidje, Traquair. 



Head not externally marked off from body, both enclosed in a carapace of osseous 

 plates, the surfaces of which are ornamented by stellate tubercles. Mouth terminal, 

 unprovided with teeth, or with skeletal parts comparable to jaws. No paired limbs or 

 limb-like appendages. Tail covered with angular sculptured scales, which assume the 

 form of imbricating fulcra along the dorsal and ventral margins. Caudal fin hetero- 

 cercal, covered with small scales, but without perceptible rays. 



Genus Drepanaspis, Schliiter, 1887. 



Mouth bounded below by a broad median mental plate ; a small perforation 

 (sensory ?) on each side of the head on the ventral surface just within the margin of 

 the carapace. A large median plate on the dorsal and ventral surfaces respectively, the 

 space between these and the lateral or marginal plates being filled up by a mosaic of 

 small polygonal plates. No dorsal fin, caudal not bilobate. 



The only known species is : — 



Drepanaspis Gemiindenensis, Schliiter. PI. I. figs. 1-3; Pis. II.- IV. 



Drepanaspis Gemiindenensis — Schliiter, Sitzungsb. niederrhein. Ges., Bonn, 1887, p. 126. 



„ „ A. S. Woodward, Gat. Foss. Fishes Brit. Mus., pt. ii., 1891, p. 311. 



,, „ E. H. Traquair, Nature, vol. liv., 1896, p. 263 ; Trans. Hoy. Soc, vol. 



xxxix., 1899, p. 844 ; Geol. Mag. (4), vol. vii., 1900, p. 153, figs. 

 1, 2, 3 ; ib., vol. ix., 1902, p. 289, figs. 1, 2. 



As this is the only known species of the genus, no specific diagnosis is necessary. 



History. — The name Drepanaspis Gemiindenensis was given in 1887 by Professor 

 C. Schluter, of the University of Bonn, to some fragmentary remains from the 

 Gemiinden slate, which he apparently considered to indicate a fish allied to Cephalaspis. 

 In Dr Smith Woodward's Catalogue of the Fossil Fishes in the British Museum 

 (pt. ii., 1891, p. 311), the fish in question is only mentioned by name along with a 

 number of other imperfectly known forms (Aspidichthys, Anomalichthys, etc.), which he 

 considered as " perhaps for the most part " referable to the Coccosteidse. However, in 



