See text Acanthodes (from Greek: ἄκανθώδης akanthódis, 'provided with spines')[2] is an extinct genus of acanthodian fish.

[3] Species of Acanthodes differ from each other in the degree of body elongation and the size and shape of the fins.

[5] A specimen of Acanthodes bridgei was so well-preserved that traces of its eye tissue were sufficient to establish that Acanthodes had both rod and cone photoreceptor cells, suggesting that it was capable of color vision.

[8] Acanthodes bronni, which lived in freshwater lakes in southern Germany during the Early Permian, is known to have been fed upon by the temnospondyl amphibians Archegosaurus and Glanochthon.

[10] The classification of acanthodians was historically contentious, however, in the 2010s based in part based on detailed studies of the skull of Acanthodes, it became widely accepted that acanthodians represented a paraphyletic assemblage of stem-group Chondrichthyes.