Stensioella
| Stensioella Temporal range:
| |
|---|---|
| |
| Fossil specimen | |
| |
| Reconstruction | |
Scientific classification 
| |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | †Placodermi |
| Order: | †Stensioellida Romer , 1945
|
| Family: | †Stensioellidae Berg, 1940 |
| Genus: | †Stensioella Broili, 1933 |
| Species: | †S. heintzi
|
| Binomial name | |
| †Stensioella heintzi Broili, 1933
| |
Stensioella heintzi is an enigmatic
Hunsrück slate of Germany. The genus is named after Erik Stensiö, the species name honours Anatol Heintz
.
Anatomy
Stensioella heintzi has an elongated body, a whip-like tail, and long, wing-like pectoral fins. In life, the animal would have looked vaguely like an elongated
sympatric Gemuendina, S. heintzi had armor made up of a complex mosaic of small, scale-like tubercles
.
Taxonomy
Stensioella is tentatively placed within Placodermi as being among the most basal of all placoderms, as from what can be discerned from the only whole specimen found, the shoulder joints of its armor appear to be very similar to other placoderms. Despite this detail, coupled with superficial similarities in skull plates, and gross, superficial similarities between its tubercles, and the tubercles of the
Chondrichthyan Devonian
radiation.
Aside from a superficially similar
bodyplan to primitive holocephalids like Menaspis
, critics to Janvier's idea say that there is very little else in common S. heintzi has with holocephalids.
