There is something else remarkable about the bodies to which conodonts belonged. They have no hard bones. These were soft-bodied animals with hard teeth. For years, paleontologists have argued about why hard skeletons, those containing hydroxyapatite, arose in the first place. For those who believed that skeletons began with jaws, backbones, or body armor, conodonts provide an “inconvenient tooth,” if you will. The first hard hydroxyapatite-containing body parts were teeth. Hard bones arose not to protect animals, but to eat them. With this, the fish-eat-fish world really began in earnest.
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