Ptilopoda

## Taxonomy

Polypodia

Tetrabrachia

Acanthopodia

Hadrorhachia

**Ptilopoda**

## Immediate subtaxa

*Bathytitan vendari*

**Ptilopoda** (lit. "feather feet") are an extinct clade of Hadrorhachia.

## Description

First emerging around 4067ma, Ptilopods were filter-feeding Acanthopods, feeding on the vast swarms of plankton near the ocean surface. To this end, their four feeding arms were lined with long, tightly spaced bristles used to sieve plankton from the water. These bristles, combined with their subcarangiform swimming, made them slower than other clades of Hadorhachids. While this didn't impede their ability to hunt, it did make them more easily preyed upon by Temnopods, who served as their primary predators.

Like pelagic filter feeders seen on Earth, Ptilopods are the largest clade of Acanthopods, both past and present, measuring up to nine meters long. This was close to the upper limit for Acanthopods, due to their gill-driven respiration: growing to larger sizes would've require the gill surfaces to become impractically large.

For roughly 140Ma years, Ptilopods monopolized the role of large filter feeders. However, following the disruption of the oceanic ecosystem, Ptilopods declined in number, triggering a massive disruption in the pelagic ecosystem. The Thalattotheres, more specifically Isopterygians, largely overtook the Ptilopods' role as filter feeders. However, the Ptilopods persisted for another 180 million years, as their gill-based respiration allowed them to hunt and survive in waters too deep for the Thalattotheres.

Their lower diversity, large size, and precarious niche would all contribute to their ultimate extinction during the mass extinction event.

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 † = Extinct