Carole Jan Burrow

Carole Jan Burrow
Queensland Museum · Geosciences

Ph D

About

138
Publications
51,171
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Introduction
I work on Palaeozoic fossil fish from Australia and overseas, including several ongoing projects on Scottish and North American (esp. Canadian) material. Acanthodians are my specialty, but I also work on micro- and disarticulated remains of other jawed vertebrates including sharks, placoderms and stem actinopterygians. I am collaborating with Australian colleagues Kate Trinajstic, Gavin Young, John Long and others on some of the more exotic fish from the Late Devonian Gogo Formation, WA.
Additional affiliations
January 1992 - December 2008
University of Queensland

Publications

Publications (138)
Article
Palaeospondylus gunni Traquair, 1890, is represented by thousands of similarly preserved articulated fossils from Achannaras quarry (∼390 Mya) in Caithness, Scotland. With radically different interpretations of its structure, it has been assigned to almost all major jawless and jawed vertebrate groups. Here we report a new and older species of Pala...
Article
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Hyoliths have a sparse fossil record worldwide in the Devonian, with only one Devonian hyolith from Australia-the orthothecid Costulatotheca schleigeri-treated systematically to date. The material described here, from the Connemarra Formation of central New South Wales, comprises disarticulated conches and opercula showing a range of sizes. Since a...
Article
Vertebrate fish scales, predominantly those of an agnathan turiniid thelodont, and a few from acanthodian gnathostome Nostovicina laticristata are described from the Lower Devonian Günayyaka Formation in the Ovacık slice of the Tahtalıdağ Nappe north of Alanya (Antalya Unit) in the Anatalya region, southwest Anatolia, southern Turkey. The fish micr...
Article
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ABSTRACT–– A new gyracanthid, Gyracanthus? jasperi sp. nov., is described based on partially articulated and isolated elements from the Lower Carboniferous (Mississippian) Waugh Member of the Ste Genevieve Formation, at the early tetrapod site near Delta, Iowa USA. One pectoral fin spine of the new gyracanthid is described using micro-computed tomo...
Article
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This study re-examines more than 2,000 fossil samples from 51 stratigraphic units spanning the Ordovician to Devonian sedimentary successions of the Cargelligo and Nymagee 1:250,000 geological map sheet areas in central New South Wales. It provides a comprehensive review of all published and unpublished reports available on the palaeontology and bi...
Poster
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ABSTRACT This study re-examines more than 2000 fossil samples from 51 stratigraphic units spanning the Ordovician to Devonian sedimentary successions of the Cargelligo and Nymagee 1:250 000 geological map sheets in central New South Wales. It provides a comprehensive review of all published and unpublished reports available on the palaeontology an...
Research
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Detailed photographs of specimens from Late Silurian to earliest Devonian vertebrate biostratigraphy of the Birch Creek II section, Roberts Mountains, Nevada, U.S.A.
Article
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Agnathan remains (thelodont scales, possible heterostracans) and gnathostome remains (acanthodian, chondrichthyan, placoderm) support the Pridoli to Lochkovian dates for the Birch Creek II section in Nevada.
Article
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When first described based on isolated scales, Ligulalepis was assigned to the Palaeoniscoidea, a basal group of actinopterygians (ray-finned fishes). Recent cladistic analyses, mainly based on skull and neurocranial characters, have mostly recovered the taxon (or, ‘ Ligulalepis ’) as a stem osteichthyan. Here we present information on Ligulalepis...
Article
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The Early Devonian (Emsian) vertebrate fauna of the Gaspé Peninsula, Quebec (Canada) shows close affinity with the Emsian fauna from the Atholville beds, New Brunswick (Canada). Specimens collected in the early 2000s from several localities in central Gaspé include molds of tooth whorls and isolated teeth that we assign to the stem chondrichthyan D...
Article
Mesacanthus mitchelli is an important taxon in elucidating relationships amongst stem chondrichthyans, being the best known and most abundant of the oldest known acanthodiform acanthodians. Here we note some newly recognised morphological features and describe the histological structure of the endoskeleton and dermal elements. The jaws are preserve...
Article
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The type material of acanthodian taxa from the upper Silurian of Estonia, erected by C. Pander and V. Rohon in the nineteenth century, has long been lost, and in most cases no neotypes have been erected to date. We nominate scales of Nostolepis striata Pander and Gomphonchus sandelensis (Pander) from the type locality at the Ohesaare Cliff, Saarema...
Article
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The ‘acanthodian’ fishes provide key anatomical insights into the deepest branches of the chondrichthyan stem group. We review the anatomy of the acanthodian Vernicomacanthus uncinatus from the Lochkovian (Lower Devonian, 419.2–410.8 Ma) of Scotland based on eight articulated fossils, one of which is newly described. Broadly, the anatomy of V. unci...
Chapter
Few pre-late Devonian sharks remains are found in Australia and here we discuss new teeth found in Victoria that enable better understanding of early shark teeth including those called Mcmurdodus from Antarctica and Queensland. A new genus and species are named in honour of Dr John Maisey, chondrichthyan specialist.
Article
Serial sectioning of a nodule encapsulating an adult specimen of the arthrodire placoderm Watsonosteus fletti from the Eday Flagstone Formation (Givetian) in the Orcadian Basin of northern Scotland has revealed the presence of a number of embryos within the adult. This specimen represents the oldest known record of fossilized vertebrate embryos. Th...
Article
Articulated cheiracanthid acanthodians are relatively rare above the Dickosteus thrieplandi biostratigraphic zone in the Orcadian Basin, with Cheiracanthus peachi den Blaauwen, Newman & Burrow the only species identified to date. Here we describe two other taxa Fallodentus davidsoni nov. gen. et sp. and Markacanthus costulatus Valiukevičius from th...
Article
Vertebrate fossils are extremely rare below the Achanarras fish beds and equivalent strata in northern Scotland. Here we describe the cheiracanthid acanthodians from the lowest Middle Devonian of this region, comprising partial articulated specimens and squamation patches of two species Cheiracanthus flabellicostatus and C. brevicostatus . Both spe...
Article
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Tessellated calcified cartilage (TCC) is a distinctive kind of biomineralized perichondral tissue found in many modern and extinct chondrichthyans (sharks, rays, chimaeroids and their extinct allies). Customarily, this feature has been treated somewhat superficially in phylogenetic analyses, often as a single “defining” character of a chondrichthya...
Article
Spiracles are a general character of gnathostomes (jawed fishes), being present in antiarch placoderms, commonly regarded as the most basal gnathostome group. The presence of spiracular tubes in acanthodians has been deduced from grooves on the neurocranium of the derived acanthodiform Acanthodes bronni from the Permian of Germany, but until now th...
Article
A number of partial articulated specimens of Cheiracanthus peachi nov. sp. have been collected from the Mey Flagstone Formation and Rousay Flagstone Formation within the Orcadian Basin of northern Scotland. The new, robust-bodied species is mainly distinguished by the scale ornament of radiating grooves rather than ridges. Compared to other Cheirac...
Article
Two body fossils of the Middle Devonian acanthodian Cheiracanthus intricatus Valiukevičius have been collected from the Fiskekløfta Member, the upper member of the Tordalen Formation in the Mimerdalen Subgroup of Spitsbergen. One of the specimens is articulated, the first such known of this species. In the Baltic region the species is only known fr...
Article
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A core sample from the offshore Pendock 1A well, Carnarvon Basin, Western Australia yielded microvertebrate residues at an horizon in the lower part of the Hamelin Formation, dated as late Silurian, ? Ludlow, based on associated conodonts. The fish fauna comprises loganelliiform thelodont scales, the ? stem gnathostome Aberrosquama occidens nov. ge...
Chapter
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Evolution and Development of Fishes - edited by Zerina Johanson January 2019
Article
Arthodire placoderms, as a possible sister group of Chinese ‘maxillate’ placoderms plus crown gnathostomes, provide important information regarding early evolution of jaws and teeth. High-resolution computed tomography and digital dissection on a unique articulated 400 million-year-old buchanosteid arthrodire permitsa detailed description of the th...
Article
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The Lower Devonian 'Placoderm Sandstone' in the Holy Cross Mountains (HCM) is filled with abundant impressions of disarticulated vertebrate remains. The only acanthodian macroremains named to date are fin spines of Machaeracanthus polonicus Gürich. Fin spine impressions in slabs from the Winna Formation (Emsian) at Podłazie Hill (near Daleszyce) in...
Article
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Burrow, C.J., Newman, M., den Blaauwen, J., Jones, R. and Davidson, R. 2018. The Early Devonian ischnacanthiform acanthodian Ischnacanthus gracilis (Egerton, 1861) from the Midland Valley of Scotland. Acta Geologica Polonica, 68 (3), 335-362. Warszawa. Ischnacanthus gracilis (Egerton, 1861), the only ischnacanthiform acanthodian from the Lochkovian...
Article
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Placoid and polyodontode scales of stem chondrichthyans have been found in the early Lochkovian "Ditton Group" of the Brown Clee Hill district, Shropshire, England and at Talgarth, south Wales. One of the forms is assigned to a new species of Altholepis Karatajute-Talimaa, 1997, a genus already recognised from Lochkovian shallow marine deposits in...
Article
Over recent years the authors have been co-authors on a number of papers re-describing acanthodian species from classic localities in the Devonian strata of Scotland and Canada. In a number of works the noting of syntypes of particular species has been mentioned, but the authors have neglected to designate a lectotype for some of these species. In...
Article
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Agnathan and gnathostome remains, associated with lingulid brachiopod fragments and distinctive ostracods, have been extracted from a small calcareous mudstone sample collected from the type section of the Eastport Formation on the northern shore of Moose Island, Maine. The vertebrate assemblage includes osteostracan, anaspid, and thelodont scales,...
Article
An acanthodian assemblage is reported for the first time from the Silurian–Devonian boundary beds of Novaya Zemlya Archipelago, Russia. The acanthodian scales and rare other vertebrate microremains were in a sample collected from the Reliktovoe Formation of the western coast of Inostantzev Bay, North Island. The assemblage includes Gomphonchus medi...
Article
Despite Machaeracanthus spines being first recorded and described from western France in the mid-nineteenth century, since then they have only rarely been documented from this region. Here we describe specimens from several localities of Pragian age, in particular those from Saint-Germain-le-Fouilloux which were first figured by Bézier in the early...
Article
The higher taxonomic affinities of fin spines from the Lower Devonian (Emsian) Atholville beds, Campbellton Formation, near Campbellton, New Brunswick, Canada, originally identified as Ctenacanthus latispinosus, have been uncertain since they were first described by Whiteaves in the late 19th century. Woodward subsequently referred the species to C...
Article
Fish remains from over 100 localities in the Upper Silurian to Lower Devonian (traditional Lower Old Red Sandstone: LORS: Přidolí–Pragian) of Wales and the Welsh Borderland Anglo-Welsh Basin, southwest Britain have been investigated. Work on microfossils of fish (‘microvertebrates’, generally <5–8 mm) is reviewed, covering agnathan thelodonts, hete...
Article
Background An assemblage of isolated vertebrate elements from northern Portugal, first described in the early twentieth century, was originally considered comparable to Late Silurian faunas from the Lower Old Red Sandstone of the Welsh Borderlands, but with some anomalous identifications of taxa only known from late Early Devonian or younger deposi...
Article
The Lower Old Red Sandstone terranes of the Midland Valley of Scotland and the Anglo-Welsh Basin have been considered as separate realms due to the rarity of fish species common to both areas. Although in the first half of the 19th century the osteostracan Cephalaspis lyelli was thought to occur in both terranes this was shown in be incorrect in th...
Article
New fossils of “Gyracanthus” sherwoodi Newberry, 1889 are described primarily from the Late Devonian Red Hill site and Metzger’s Quarry (Catskill Formation, late Famennian) of Clinton and Sullivan Counties in central Pennsylvania. The fossils include ornamented prepectoral ventral plates, pectoral, pelvic, and dorsal fin spines, elements of the end...
Article
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The extinct Devonian placoderms (armoured jawed fishes) [[1][1],[2][2]] are central to the question of tooth origins, because some have denticulate ‘toothplates’ within the mouth cavity. A key question is whether these gnathal plates were modified from external dermal bones, or had ‘denticles
Article
Fossil fish are poorly represented in middle Lower Devonian deposits of the western United States. Here we describe vertebrate microremains from mid-Pragian levels in the Kobeh Member, McColley Canyon Formation, central Nevada. The species diversity of the assemblages is low and dominated by the acanthodian Nostolepis costata Goujet, 1976. This spe...
Article
Dentigerous jaw bones from the Bahram Formation (Late Devonian) near Chahriseh, Iran represent the second youngest record of ischnacanthiform acanthodians worldwide. The specimens are assigned to Atopacanthus based on the near symmetrical shape of the lateral teeth, lack of side cusps on these teeth, and the low angle at which the posterior flange...
Article
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The Diplacanthiformes are a clade of acanthodian fishes which were widespread during the Middle and early Late Devonian. They are best represented in the Middle Devonian, by articulated fossils, fin spines, and abundant scales, the latter particularly from northern Europe. Three species of diplacanthid diplacanthiforms, Diplacanthus crassisimus, Di...
Article
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Background: Living gnathostomes (jawed vertebrates) comprise two divisions, Chondrichthyes (cartilaginous fishes, including euchondrichthyans with prismatic calcified cartilage, and extinct stem chondrichthyans) and Osteichthyes (bony fishes including tetrapods). Most of the early chondrichthyan ('shark') record is based upon isolated teeth, spine...
Article
Disarticulated elements in a large, uncompressed regurgitate from Tillywhandland Quarry (Lochkovian), as well as serial sections of an articulated specimen, reveal the three-dimensional shape and structure of fin spines, scapulocoracoid and dermal plates, and the histological structure of dermal and endoskeletal hard tissues of the climatiid acanth...
Article
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The five species of genus Euthacanthus Powrie, 1864 are reduced to two species on morphological and stratigraphical evidence. Euthacanthus macnicoli Powrie, 1864 and Euthacanthus grandis Powrie, 1870 are here synonymised in the type species E. macnicoli Powrie, 1864. In a previous article, Euthacanthus gracilis Powrie, 1870 and Euthacanthus elegans...
Article
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Background The relationships between early jawed vertebrates have been much debated, with cladistic analyses yielding little consensus on the position (or positions) of acanthodians with respect to other groups. Whereas one recent analysis showed various acanthodians (classically known as ‘spiny sharks’) as stem osteichthyans (bony fishes) and othe...
Article
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A diverse vertebrate fauna, comprising both micro-and macrovertebrate remains, is known from the Paleozoic of Western Australia. However, it is the Late Devonian fauna of the Gogo Formation that shows exceptional preservation and which is the best known. Advances in tomographic techniques, both micro-CT and synchrotron, have revealed new histologic...
Article
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Rare scales of agnathan thelodonts Paralogania ludlowiensis and Thelodus sp. cf. T. parvidens, or alternatively Thelodus macintoshi, and acanthodian fishes Nostolepis striata, Gomphonchus sp., Gomphonchoporus sp. aff. G. hoppei, and Machaeraporus stonehousensis (Legault) n. gen., plus acanthodian fin spines, teeth and tooth whorls have been identif...
Article
Parexus Agassiz was one of the first Early Devonian ‘spiny sharks’ to be described. The genus is readily recognized by the large size and ornament of its anterior dorsal fin spine. Although two species were erected, reappraisal of all known specimens indicate they should be synonymized in the type species Parexus recurvus. Farnellia tuberculata Tra...
Article
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Calcareous and sandy deposits from the basal members of the Enmakaj and Pil'hikaj formations in coastal exposures along the De Long Strait in central Chukotka, Arctic far-eastern Russia, have yielded two assemblages of fossil fish comprising heterostracan plate fragments, turiniid and other thelodont scales, acanthodian scales and a partial tooth,...
Article
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Articulated specimens of jawed fishes, and assemblages of disarticulated elements that can be assigned to a single biological species, are extremely rare from pre-Devonian deposits. The acanthodian species Ischnacanthus? scheii Spjeldnaes is based on a monospecific assemblage, comprising fin spines, dentigerous jaw bone fragments and scales, from t...
Data
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The acanthodian originally described as Euthacanthus curtus Powrie, 1870 from the Early Devonian (Lochkovian) of Scotland was tentatively reassigned to Diplacanthus Agassiz, 1844 later in the nineteenth century, although doubt was cast on this revision. In 1976 Paton suggested that specimens comparable with the single type could belong to Uraniacan...
Article
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A new acanthodiform acanthodian Halimacanthodes ahlbergi n. gen. n. sp., based on a single uncrushed, partial articulated specimen, represents the first acanthodian collected from the Gogo Formation, Canning Basin, Western Australia. The delicate perichondral ossifications of the lower jaws, branchial skeleton and endoskeletal shoulder girdle are p...
Chapter
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Of late little work has been done on Palaeozoic fossil fish taphonomy especially in the Devonian period, [known also as the Age of Fishes], apart from the best-known Lagerstätten. Konservat deposits in the Silurian are rarer even though they have produced the earliest described complete fossil fish. In recent decades, research including taphonomic...
Article
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A new articulated acanthodian from the Devonian Bunga Beds on the south coast of New South Wales is assigned to Culmacanthus sp., and reveals that this diplacanthiform has smooth dental plates on the occlusal surfaces of the lower jaws. Within the Acanthodii, this type of element was fi rst identifi ed in "Gladiobranchus" probaton from the earliest...
Article
Gladbachus adentatus is a putative chondrichthyan, known only from the holotype specimen, which comprises an articulated endoskeleton complete from head to pelvic region with the squamation also preserved. The scales superficially resemble those of placoderms more than sharks, in having a similar gross morphology, lamellar cellular bone forming the...
Article
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Synopsis The first full description of the Lochkovian acanthodian Euthacanthus gracilis , presented here, shows that the species shares many characters with the type species Euthacanthus macnicoli supporting its retention in this genus. Euthacanthus elegans is deemed to be a junior synonym of E. gracilis . E. gracilis differs from E. macnicoli in h...
Article
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Vertebrates preserved in calcareous concretions collected from Silurian marginal-marine deposits near Nerepis, southern New Brunswick include agnathan thelodonts, a heterostracan, and possibly an anaspid, as well as spines and scales from an acanthodian (the only jawed fish remains). Several incomplete specimens of acanthodians, all determined as t...
Article
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A new Early Carboniferous (Mississippian, mid-Visean) chondrichthyan, Reginaselache morrisi, n. g., n. sp., from non- or marginal marine sandy mudstones of the Tetrapod Unit of the mid-Visean (330 Ma = top Holkerian/basal Asbian) Ducabrook Formation, northwest of Springsure, central Queensland, is referred to the order Xenacanthiformes. The taxon i...
Article
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An evidence-based reassessment of the phylogenetic relationships of conodonts shows that they are not “stem” gnathostomes, nor vertebrates, and not even craniates. A signifi cant group of conodont workers have proposed or accepted a craniate designation for the conodont animal, an interpretation that is increasingly becoming established as accepted...
Article
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The term vertebrate is generally viewed by systematists in two contexts, either as Craniata (myxinoids or hagfishes + vertebrates s.s., i.e. basically, animals possessing a stiff backbone) or as Vertebrata (lampreys + other vertebrae-bearing animals, which we propose to call here Euvertebrata). Craniates are characterized by a skull; vertebrates by...
Article
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Circumorbital dermal bones are found in most groups of early vertebrates that have dermal bony plates on the head. Taxonomic distribution of dermal sclerotic plates on the eye itself is less clear, partly because the eyeball is rarely preserved and sometimes because sclerotic bones have been misinterpreted as circumorbital bones. Based on the exami...
Article
Silurian vertebrate remains are rare in the Australasian region, mostly lacking from the end Ordovician to the mid-Ludlow presumably because of the purported Gondwana Ice Age. Thelodont, placoderm, acanthodian, ?stem actinopterygian, and probable chondrichthyan remains are known from eastern and western Australia and Irian Jaya. Of significance are...
Article
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Fossil vertebrate microremains were collected from 22 sampling levels between the Pragian/Emsian boundary stratotype point (base of the kitabicus Conodont Zone) and the mid-Emsian (excavatus Conodont Zone) in the Zinzilban section, Kitab State Geological Reserve, Uzbekistan. The material includes scales of acanthodians Radioporacanthodes liujingens...
Article
... View Within Article. 2. Devonian palaeogeography and palaeolatitude. Two longstanding contentious issues regarding palaeogeographic connections between East Gondwana and other areas remain unresolved. ... 3.1. Early–Middle Devonian (Emsian–Eifelian). ...
Article
Full-text available
The term vertebrate is generally viewed by systematists in two contexts, either as Craniata (myxinoids or hagfishes + vertebrates s.s., i.e. basically, animals possessing a stiff backbone) or as Vertebrata (lampreys + other vertebrae-bearing animals, which we propose to call here Euvertebrata). Craniates are characterized by a skull; vertebrates by...
Article
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Onychodus scoticus Newton, a taxon based originally on isolated tooth whorls from the Lower Devonian (Lochkovian) of ‘Turin Hill’, Forfar, Scotland was reassigned to the genus Protodus by Traquair in the late 1800s following discovery at the type locality of an articulated specimen comprising a head with the same kind of tooth whorls, and because o...