Fish
Dunkleosteus
Its head was armored and its jaws had unusual cutting surfaces.
Dunkleosteus had an armored head and very striking cutting surfaces on its jaws.
Three stages. One companion.
Game artwork
AI-generated, stylized game illustrations. These designs and growth stages are imaginative, not scientific reconstructions.
Dunkleosteus at a glance
- Diet
- Carnivore
- It is interpreted as a consumer of other animals. Hunting and scavenging are not mutually exclusive behaviors.
- When it lived
- Devonian
- Group
- Dunkleosteidae
- Dunkleosteids
- Fossil locations
- United States, Canada, Poland, Russia
- Places where fossils have been found
Beyond the game
The real Dunkleosteus
It was an open water fish from the placoderm group. It was among the large vertebrate predators of its time; the validity of some named species remains disputed.
Its head was armored and its jaws had unusual cutting surfaces. It was a placoderm, within a group of fish other than sharks. Its history belongs to the Devonian, long before the dinosaurs appeared.
This grouping describes evolutionary relationships. Its members share ancestors; they do not form a chain in which one must turn into another.
Fossil discoveries
Selected fossil records · present-day map
Map references
Map: Natural Earth, public domain. Fossil records: linked collections and publications.Sources & text credits
Explore the references behind this profile.
- Dunkleosteus
Wikipedia contributors · Spanish source
Educational text adapted and translated from this article by Wikipedia contributors. The revision link, when captured in the source catalogue, identifies the source version.
- Dunkleosteus
Wikipedia contributors · English source
Educational text adapted and translated from this article by Wikipedia contributors. The revision link, when captured in the source catalogue, identifies the source version.
- Dunkleosteidae
Wikipedia contributors · English source
Educational text adapted and translated from this article by Wikipedia contributors. The revision link, when captured in the source catalogue, identifies the source version.
- Jawed vertebrates
Wikipedia contributors · English source
Educational text adapted and translated from this article by Wikipedia contributors. The revision link, when captured in the source catalogue, identifies the source version.
Educational text adapted in English from the existing Wikipedia-backed Dinosgacha catalogue and linked articles by Wikipedia contributors.
Existing English translations have been selected and arranged for this encyclopedia. Repeated period and diet text is omitted where those fields already carry it. Unknown facts remain unfilled; unreviewed geological age phrases are omitted and period labels replace numerical ages.
The adapted educational text is available under CC BY-SA 4.0. This text license does not apply to the game illustrations.