The subclass Holocephali ("complete heads") is a taxon of cartilaginous fishes, of which the order Chimaeriformes is the only surviving group.
Holocephali has an extensive fossil record that starts during the Devonian period. However, most fossils are teeth, and the body forms of numerous species are not known, or, at best, poorly understood. Some experts further group the orders Petalodontiformes, Iniopterygiformes, and Eugeneodontida into the taxon "Paraselachimorpha," and treat it as a sister group to Chimaeriformes. However, as almost all members of Paraselachimorpha are poorly understood, most experts suspect this taxon to be either paraphyletic or a wastebasket taxon.
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