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Description
290 million years ago during the early Permian period in what is now the Lueders Formation of Texas, USA, a Dimetrodon grandis takes a swim in a lake and crosses paths with a giant. Though the sail-backed synapsid is one of the largest terrestrial carnivores alive in this time period, it is dwarfed by some of the creatures that live in this lake's waters. As the Dimetrodon swims at the surface, a gigantic Barbclabornia luedersensis opens its massive mouth to devour its prey. Fortunately for the Dimetrodon, said prey is actually tiny invertebrates living in the sediment at the bottom of the lake, which the shark-like giant filters out of the mud with each mouthful. Some smaller fish, Acanthodes, gather around and try to pick off any small critters flushed out by the Barbclabornia, while a bottom-dwelling Diplocaulus magnicornis is disturbed by titan's movements and swims away.

Decided to make a drawing for Shark Week, and yes I know that in a strict sense Barbclabornia isn't really a shark since it is outside Selachimorpha and that calling it one would be like calling a Brachiosaurus a bird, but I'm gonna do it anyways. Barbclabornia is a super cool and underrated animal, even if it is quite mysterious, and it's a crime that artbyjrc seems to be the only person so far who has drawn it . Also I haven't really drawn a lot of Paleozoic stuff so here's one more to what little I've made.

Known mostly from teeth which are only 1 to 3 millimeters tall, it would have been easy to think that Barbclabornia was a tiny animal, except there is also a known fossilized palatoquadrate (upper mouth part) of this creature that is almost a meter long with hundreds of these miniscule teeth still attached. Barbclabornia was a cartilaginous fish of the extinct Bransonelliformes order, which has only one other known genus (that being Bransonella, known only from teeth), so it is difficult to reconstruct this mystery fish since the whole order is known from just teeth and a mouth part. The Bransonelliformes were however related to another extinct cartilaginous fish order, the Xenacanthiforms, which were freshwater animals with pointed dorsal spines for defence and sometimes informally called 'eel sharks' due to their elongated bodies (nowhere as extreme as real eels though). Some xenacanths have excellently-preserved specimens, allowing us to know their appearance well, and if we were to assume Barbclabornia had similar elongated proportions, its big mouth would suggest that it grew at least 5 meters long, and quite possibly more, which is significantly larger than the biggest known xenacanth (the 3-meter Lebachacanthus) and MUCH MUCH BIGGER than the only other known bransonelliform (Bransonella was under a meter long). To make things more interesting, Barbclabornia fossils are found on freshwater deposits, making it the largest known freshwater cartilaginous fish and possibly among the biggest freshwater fish ever, maybe even rivaling Rhizodus.

But the interesting things about this animal don't stop there. Whilst a giant river shark may sound like a deadly predator of large prey, keep in mind that Barbclabornia teeth were fucking tiny and ill-equipped for tearing flesh. Instead, having hundreds of tiny teeth in a big mouth is something it has in common with filter-feeding sharks like the whale shark and basking shark. Yep, this lake titan was likely a filter-feeder, gulping large amounts of water and feeding on tiny invertebrates. Plankton may not have been all it ate though, as some megafaunal filter feeders like gray whales and whale sharks are known to also gulp mud and sediment at the bottom of shallow water to feed on tiny benthic invertebrates, and considering that xenacanths likely lived close to the bottom anyways, the gigantic Barbclabornia may have also regularly been gulping mud.

Barbclabornia teeth have been found in early Permian deposits across much of the central and eastern United States, suggesting the giant lake shark was quite widespread across North American waterways. Named after the Lueders Formation in Texas, it is also known from the Texas Red Beds, Pennsylvania, Ohio and more, overlapping in range with some of the most iconic early Permian wildlife. The sail-backed synapsid Dimetrodon was a large predator, some of the larger species reaching over 3 meters, and it is known to hunt a wide variety of both terrestrial and aquatic prey (perhaps comparable to a jaguar), but Barbclabornia would probably have been too large for it. The nectridean amphibian Diplocaulus was a meter-long animal that likely ambushed prey from the bottom of rivers and lakes, perhaps crossing paths with Barbclabornia from time to time. Though most famous for having a boomerang-shaped skull, more recent research suggests each pointed end of the skull supported a skin flap connected to the rest of the body and that the head wouldn't appear very boomerang-shaped in life. In the Lueders Formation, a variety of much smaller freshwater fish would have inhabited the waterways alongside Barbclabornia. A fin spine found in the formation has been assigned to Acanthodes sp., a genus of acanthodian fish known to occur in freshwater deposits elsewhere.

As awesome as Barbclabornia is, do keep in mind though that this is an animal known from only teeth and a mouth part, that its entire order has no decently-preserved body fossils, and that this reconstruction is based mostly on animals from a different order. It is very much possible that Barbclabornia had a very different physical appearance from what I have depicted here, and any reconstruction of this creature is highly speculative. There is a good chance that this drawing is going to age like all those "big Gallimimus" depictions of Deinocheirus or the "Baryonyx with a sail" reconstructions of Spinosaurus from the 2000s, being based on better-preserved remains of much smaller and distantly-related animals. The mystery of it also adds to what makes Barbclabornia so fascinating to me. Can't wait for when a near-complete specimen of it is described in 2090 (optimistic underestimate probably).

Description
290 million years ago during the early Permian period in what is now the Lueders Formation of Texas, USA, a Dimetrodon grandis takes a swim in a lake and crosses paths with a giant. Though the sail-backed synapsid is one of the largest terrestrial carnivores alive in this time period, it is dwarfed by some of the creatures that live in this lake's waters. As the Dimetrodon swims at the surface, a gigantic Barbclabornia luedersensis opens its massive mouth to devour its prey. Fortunately for the Dimetrodon, said prey is actually tiny invertebrates living in the sediment at the bottom of the lake, which the shark-like giant filters out of the mud with each mouthful. Some smaller fish, Acanthodes, gather around and try to pick off any small critters flushed out by the Barbclabornia, while a bottom-dwelling Diplocaulus magnicornis is disturbed by titan's movements and swims away.

Decided to make a drawing for Shark Week, and yes I know that in a strict sense Barbclabornia isn't really a shark since it is outside Selachimorpha and that calling it one would be like calling a Brachiosaurus a bird, but I'm gonna do it anyways. Barbclabornia is a super cool and underrated animal, even if it is quite mysterious, and it's a crime that artbyjrc seems to be the only person so far who has drawn it . Also I haven't really drawn a lot of Paleozoic stuff so here's one more to what little I've made.

Known mostly from teeth which are only 1 to 3 millimeters tall, it would have been easy to think that Barbclabornia was a tiny animal, except there is also a known fossilized palatoquadrate (upper mouth part) of this creature that is almost a meter long with hundreds of these miniscule teeth still attached. Barbclabornia was a cartilaginous fish of the extinct Bransonelliformes order, which has only one other known genus (that being Bransonella, known only from teeth), so it is difficult to reconstruct this mystery fish since the whole order is known from just teeth and a mouth part. The Bransonelliformes were however related to another extinct cartilaginous fish order, the Xenacanthiforms, which were freshwater animals with pointed dorsal spines for defence and sometimes informally called 'eel sharks' due to their elongated bodies (nowhere as extreme as real eels though). Some xenacanths have excellently-preserved specimens, allowing us to know their appearance well, and if we were to assume Barbclabornia had similar elongated proportions, its big mouth would suggest that it grew at least 5 meters long, and quite possibly more, which is significantly larger than the biggest known xenacanth (the 3-meter Lebachacanthus) and MUCH MUCH BIGGER than the only other known bransonelliform (Bransonella was under a meter long). To make things more interesting, Barbclabornia fossils are found on freshwater deposits, making it the largest known freshwater cartilaginous fish and possibly among the biggest freshwater fish ever, maybe even rivaling Rhizodus.

But the interesting things about this animal don't stop there. Whilst a giant river shark may sound like a deadly predator of large prey, keep in mind that Barbclabornia teeth were fucking tiny and ill-equipped for tearing flesh. Instead, having hundreds of tiny teeth in a big mouth is something it has in common with filter-feeding sharks like the whale shark and basking shark. Yep, this lake titan was likely a filter-feeder, gulping large amounts of water and feeding on tiny invertebrates. Plankton may not have been all it ate though, as some megafaunal filter feeders like gray whales and whale sharks are known to also gulp mud and sediment at the bottom of shallow water to feed on tiny benthic invertebrates, and considering that xenacanths likely lived close to the bottom anyways, the gigantic Barbclabornia may have also regularly been gulping mud.

Barbclabornia teeth have been found in early Permian deposits across much of the central and eastern United States, suggesting the giant lake shark was quite widespread across North American waterways. Named after the Lueders Formation in Texas, it is also known from the Texas Red Beds, Pennsylvania, Ohio and more, overlapping in range with some of the most iconic early Permian wildlife. The sail-backed synapsid Dimetrodon was a large predator, some of the larger species reaching over 3 meters, and it is known to hunt a wide variety of both terrestrial and aquatic prey (perhaps comparable to a jaguar), but Barbclabornia would probably have been too large for it. The nectridean amphibian Diplocaulus was a meter-long animal that likely ambushed prey from the bottom of rivers and lakes, perhaps crossing paths with Barbclabornia from time to time. Though most famous for having a boomerang-shaped skull, more recent research suggests each pointed end of the skull supported a skin flap connected to the rest of the body and that the head wouldn't appear very boomerang-shaped in life. In the Lueders Formation, a variety of much smaller freshwater fish would have inhabited the waterways alongside Barbclabornia. A fin spine found in the formation has been assigned to Acanthodes sp., a genus of acanthodian fish known to occur in freshwater deposits elsewhere.

As awesome as Barbclabornia is, do keep in mind though that this is an animal known from only teeth and a mouth part, that its entire order has no decently-preserved body fossils, and that this reconstruction is based mostly on animals from a different order. It is very much possible that Barbclabornia had a very different physical appearance from what I have depicted here, and any reconstruction of this creature is highly speculative. There is a good chance that this drawing is going to age like all those "big Gallimimus" depictions of Deinocheirus or the "Baryonyx with a sail" reconstructions of Spinosaurus from the 2000s, being based on better-preserved remains of much smaller and distantly-related animals. The mystery of it also adds to what makes Barbclabornia so fascinating to me. Can't wait for when a near-complete specimen of it is described in 2090 (optimistic underestimate probably).