The pharynx of the iconic stem-group chondrichthyan Acanthodes (Agassiz, 1833) revisited with micro computed tomography.

Acanthodes has long been the primary source of information on the pharyngeal skeleton of acanthodians, a stem-group chondrichthyan grade. Because of this its anatomy has played an outsized role in attempts to understand the evolution of the jawed vertebrate pharynx and the clade as a whole. However, the anatomy of the pharynx of Acanthodes remains poorly understood and subject to several competing interpretations. We use computed tomography (CT) to image the articulated pharyngeal skeletons of three specimens of Acanthodes confusus from Lebach, Germany. Acanthodes had a melange of osteichthyan-like and chondrichthyan-like morphologies in its pharyngeal skeleton. Like other stem-chondrichthyans, Acanthodes had a basihyal with no hypohyals, and four pairs of posteriorly oriented pharyngobranchials. Like osteichthyans, Acanthodes possessed an interhyal, but lacked the separate infra- and supra-pharyngobranchial elements present in osteichthyans and the crown-chondrichthyan Ozarcus. Using this new data we build and animated a digital 3D model of the pharyngeal endoskeleton in Acanthodes, showing that the jaws would have swung outwards during the opening cycle, increasing the anteriorly facing area of the gape for suspension feeding. These new data provide a more definitive picture of the anatomy of a taxon that has long been of great significance in early vertebrate palaeontology.