Overview
- An international team led by Case Western Reserve University published a detailed reanalysis of Dunkleosteus terrelli using specimens from the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.
- The study finds nearly half of the skull was composed of cartilage, including key jaw joints and muscle attachment sites once assumed to be bone.
- Researchers identified a prominent bony canal interpreted to house a facial jaw muscle comparable to those in modern sharks and rays.
- The iconic slicing bone blades are presented as a derived specialization limited to Dunkleosteus and a few close relatives, while most arthrodires possessed true teeth.
- The results reinterpret feeding and evolution in the group, indicating chunk-biting of large prey and supporting a view of arthrodires as ecologically diverse rather than uniform.