Cyclostomata

Cyclostomata is a group of chordates that comprises the living jawless fishes: the lampreys and hagfishes. Both groups have round mouths that lack jaws but have retractable horny teeth. The name Cyclostomata means "round mouths". Their mouths cannot close due to the lack of a jaw, so they have to constantly cycle water through the mouth.

Possible relationships
This taxon is often included in the paraphyletic Class Agnatha, which also includes several groups of extinct armored fishes called ostracoderms. Most fossil agnathans, such as galeaspids, thelodonts, and osteostracans, are more closely related to vertebrates with jaws (called gnathostomes) than to cyclostomes. Cyclostomes seem to have split off before the evolution of dentine and bone, which are present in many fossil agnathans, including conodonts.

Biologists disagree about whether cyclostomes are a clade. The "vertebrate hypothesis" holds that lampreys are more closely related to gnathostomes than they are to the hagfish. The "cyclostome hypothesis", on the other hand, holds that lampreys and hagfishes are more closely related, making cyclostomata monophyletic.

Most studies based on anatomy have supported the vertebrate hypothesis, while most molecular phylogenies have supported the cyclostome hypothesis.

There are exceptions in both cases, however. Similarities in the cartilage and muscles of the tongue apparatus also provide evidence of sister-group relationship between lampreys and hagfishes. And at least one molecular phylogeny has supported the vertebrate hypothesis. The embryonic development of hagfishes was once held to be drastically different from that of lampreys and gnathostomes, but recent evidence suggests that it is more similar than previously thought, which may remove an obstacle to the cyclostome hypothesis. More data may be needed to be more confident which theory is correct.