Conodonts are an extinct group of jawless vertebrates resembling eels, classified in the class Conodonta. For many years, they were known only from their tooth-like oral elements found in isolation and now called conodont elements. Knowledge about soft tissues remains limited. They existed in the world’s oceans for over 300 million years, from the Cambrian to the beginning of the Jurassic. Conodont elements are widely used as index fossils, fossils used to define and identify geological periods