Two taxonomic schemes have been available to students of conodonts for more than 120 years. Until about 1970, most taxonomists opted for a "nuts-and-bolts" approach, or form-taxonomy, which emphasized similarities and differences in the morphology of discrete skeletal elements. Since the mid-1930s, however, it has been known that skeletal apparatuses of many conodonts included mineralized elements of more than one morphologic type. Beginning about 1964, clues to assembly of at least parts of multi-element apparatuses from collections of morphologically diverse discrete specimens came to be more systematically explored. In recent years with empirical reconstruction of a rather small number of skeletal-apparatus plans, and repeated confirmation of the general applicability f these in samples through much of the known range of conodonts, emphasis has shifted away from form-taxonomy to multi-element taxonomy. Major problems that remain include (1) standardization of descriptive and locational terminology for components of multi-element apparatuses, (2) resolution of nomenclatural problems that arise because multi-element affinities of numerous type specimens cannot be (or have not been) established, and (3) correction of errors introduced by application of multi-element models to collections in which they cannot be objectively justified. The advantage of

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multi-element taxonomy is that it provides a more natural basis for specific and generic concepts, and a foundation for discussions of functional morphology, paleoecology, phylogeny, and conodont biostratrigraphy.

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