placoderm

Estimated CEFR level: C2 — Proficiency

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

noun fish-like vertebrate with bony plates on head and upper body; dominant in seas and rivers during the Devonian; considered the earliest vertebrate with jaws

From placo- + -derm, after German Placoderm.

This was my first word of the discovery, and it told of the identification of early shells, bones of ganoids and placoderms, remnants of labyrinthodonta and thecoiidea, great mosasaur skull fragments, dinosaur vertebræ and armor plates, pterodactyl teeth and wing bones, Archaeopteryx débris, Miocene sharks' teeth, primitive bird skulls, and other bones of archaic mammals such as Palæotheres, Xiphodons, Eohippi, Oreodons, and Titanotheriidæ. — At the mountains of madness, H. P. (Howard Phillips) Lovecraft

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