Diademodus

'' (pictured) According to Harris, Diademodus was a long, slender cartilaginous fish that reached a body length of up to . He stated that the body may have been slightly wider than it was tall, making it comparable in overall form to the modern catshark genus Scyliorhinus. Like most cartilaginous fishes, its body was covered in tooth-like dermal denticles. These denticles were shorter near the head and larger in rows along the lateral line. The tail lacked an exaggerated keel such as that seen in the contemporaneous genus Cladoselache. Males possessed well-developed pelvic claspers. == Classification ==

Diademodus was originally classified within the family Coronodontidae, a group that included only the genera Coronodus and Diademodus. == Paleobiology ==

The small fins, heterocercal tail, and elongated body of Diademodus suggest that it was most likely a bottom-dwelling fish. When the genus was first described, Harris proposed that its small teeth indicated a scavenging lifestyle. He also suggested that D. hydei was piscivorous, as bony fish scales belonging to palaeoniscoids are preserved in the stomach region of the fossil. In the 2008 description of D. utahensis, paleontologist Michał Ginter suggested that the teeth of this species may have been weakly attached to the jaws, potentially limiting the animal's ability to capture large prey. Based on this interpretation, he proposed that Diademodus may have been a filter feeder, using its multicusped teeth as a sieve to trap small organisms while seawater was expelled through the mouth. == References ==