In the aftermath of the disastrous Hangenberg extinction and the development of durophagy, marine ecosystems had been turned on their heads. 86% of all marine species died out, including most of the armoured giants which swam Dome 4's shallow seas in the late Devonian. bizzare arm-jawed tetragnaths would take their place, radiating into every niche that was not already filled by other dignathans or marine myriapods. The age of true fish came to a close.
Protoconflognathus menamini was an early member of the fusejaws (family Flagellacheria), a group of tetragnaths which diverged from the rest of their order very early on. Instead of using their arms to crush shelled creatures, they likely used them to catch nimble eurypterids and fish. Over time, they moved to the front of their heads, and fused into a pseudo-neck with a false mouth at the end. These creatures looked like monstrous parodies of plesiosaurs, and indeed, many hunted like they did as well. The species pictured was a pelagic piscivore with an almost cosmopolitan distribution. Though most fusejaw died in the next mass extinction, their rebound was rapid. In the present, fusejaws still dominate the marine ecosystems across Dome 4
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