Game over

Overspecialization is a dead end

With its armour, Dunkleosteus belonged to the family of placeoderms. They were fish whose bodies, especially their heads, were armoured. The Haikouichthys described in Highlight 1 was the ancestor of the placeoderms and there were probably over 200 different species in the Devonian period. In Dunkleosteus, even the eyelids were armoured.

For a time, this super-predator was the most successful hunter in the seas of the Devonian age. But the armour was both a blessing and a curse for Dunkleosteus: Perfectly protected, he was also cumbersome and slow. And as his prey became faster and faster, he simply ran out of food. And soon Dunkleosteus was displaced by faster marine predators.

After Dunkleosteus, sharks took over the sea for some time. Dunkleosteus, with its highly specialised armour, had put all its eggs in one basket and thus lost the game of evolution.