viewpoint that conodonts, small toothlike structures found as fossils in marine rocks over a long span of geologic time, are actually parts of and supports for a lophophore organ used for respiration and for gathering or straining minute organisms to be used as food. Lophophores are frilled or fringed organs possessed by many kinds of animals, including brachiopods and bryozoans. The animals that had conodonts, it is hypothesized, were probably distinct from any known group.