P. delicatula 1880 P. woodwardi Woodward, 1915 P. oryini Heintz, 1930 P. soederberghi Sensiö, 1936 P. nielseni Sensiö, 1939 P. undulata P. konincki P. neilseni P. thomsoni Long and Daeschler,2013 P. rossimontina Land and Cuffey, 2005 Phyllolepis (from the Greek roots for ‘leaf’ and ‘scale’)[1] is the type genus of Phyllolepida, an extinct taxon of arthrodire placoderm fish from the middle to late Devonian.

[2] The species of Phyllolepis, themselves, are restricted to the Famennian-aged freshwater strata of the Late Devonian, around 360 million years ago.

[2] Phyllolepis have extensive armor made of full, flat plates, rather than scales, with both a wide jaw and mouth.

[3] As with other members of Phyllolepida, Phyllolepis have eyes on either side of their heads, unlike modern flounders, as well as an absent sclerotic ring.

[1] The highly developed system of lateral ridges are suggested to have been used for electroreception, in order to sense their surroundings in absence of functional eyes.

One of the sites where various Phyllolepis specimens have been discovered, Red Hill in Clinton County, Pennsylvania, shows signs of having been a freshwater subhabitat, similar to current Midwestern lakes.

However, dig sites in Europe[5]- and even locations still in the Pennsylvania Catskill formation[4]- may have been home to coastal-marine Phyllolepis species,[5] based on the composition of siltstones and sediment deposits.

At least one phyllolepid specimen has been found surrounded by plant material and greenish siltstones, suggesting a low energy environment, such as a floodplain pond.

The dermal ornamentation is of distinct and widely separated concentric lines on the nuchal, median dorsal, anterior lateral, and parnuchal plates.

[4] From the 1930s to 50s, there were several isolated dermal plates of phyllolepids found in Australia, attributed by Hills to be Phyllolepis but specific species left undefined.

[4] This material was gradually defined as genus Austrophyllolepis, based on plate proportions, but also solidified the assignment of the group to Placodermi and as a clade inside Arthrodira.