Anaspids were small marine fish that lacked a heavy bony shield and paired fins, but were distinctively hypocercal. Compared to many other ostracoderms, such as the Heterostraci and Osteostraci, anaspids did not possess a bony shield or armor, hence their name.

The Anaspida are all narrow-bodied jawless vertebrates characterized by triradiate postbranchial spines. They possess rod-like body scales (when not naked), large median dorsal scales or scutes, broad-based paired fins, and a strongly hypocercal (downward- lobed) tail.

The Anaspida, or anaspids, are a group of fossil, jawless vertebrates which lived in the Silurian (-430 to -410 million years ago). Anaspids differ from most other "ostracoderms" by their dermal skeleton not forming a massive headshield, although their head is covered by both large bony plates and minute scales.

†Order Anaspida Small streamlined fishes, body and head covered with elongate scales, nostril between eyes, gill openings lateral and arranged in slanting line, hypocercal tail bent downward. 3 families.

The meaning of ANASPIDA is a class or other division of primitive fishlike ostracoderms having a heterocercal tail and a covering of small elongated scales and known from Silurian-Devonian transition beds of Europe and America.

Mar 16, 2016 · Here we survey the histology of representatives spanning anaspid diversity and infer their generalized skeletal architecture. The anaspid dermal skeleton is composed of odontodes comprising...

Anaspida Long p. 241 References Blom H. (2008) A new anapsid fish from the middle Silurian Cowie Harbour fish bed of Stonehaven, Scotland, Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 28 3, 594-600

Silurian and earliest Devonian birkeniid anaspids from the Northern Hemisphere. Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Earth Sciences 92, 3, 263-323. DOI:10.1017/S0263593300000250. Märss, T. 2002. Silurian and Lower Dewonian anaspids (Agnatha) from Severnaya Zemlya (Russia). Geodiversitas 24, 1, 123-137. Märss, T. 1986.

The Anaspida make up one order of the sub-class Cephalaspidomorphi. As constituted at present (3) they compromise seven known genera, Euphanerops Woodward (4), and Endiolepis Stensi6 (3) from the Upper Devonian of Scaumenac Bay, Province of Quebec, Canada; Birkenia and Lasanius Tra-quair (5) from the Downtonian (Lower Devonian) of Scotland; and ...

The Paleozoic (Silurian and Devonian) anaspids (yes, the name is confusing) were a group of early jawless fish that lacked the heavy head shields of the conventional cephalaspidomorphs. Covered in thin scales, their bodies were slender and flexible, with stabililising fins.