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Ganoin
Ganoine or ''ganoin'' is a glassy, often multi-layered mineralized tissue that covers the scales, cranial bones and fin rays in some non-teleost ray-finned fishes, such as gars, bichirs, and coelacanths. It is composed of rod-like, pseudoprismatic apatite crystallites, with less than 5% of organic matter. Existing fish groups featuring ganoin are bichirs and gars, but ganoin is also characteristic of several extinct taxa. It is a characteristic component of ganoid scales. Ganoine is an ancient feature of ray-finned fishes, being found for example on the scales of stem group actinopteryigian ''Cheirolepis''. While often considered a synapomorphic character of ray-finned fishes, ganoine or ganoine-like tissues are also found on the extinct acanthodii. It has been suggested that ganoine is homologous to tooth enamel in vertebrates or even considered a type of enamel. Ganoine indeed contains amelogenin-like proteins and has a mineral content similar to that of tetrapod Tetra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ganoid Scale
A fish scale is a small rigid plate that grows out of the skin of a fish. The skin of most jawed fishes is covered with these protective scales, which can also provide effective camouflage through the use of reflection and colouration, as well as possible hydrodynamic advantages. The term ''scale'' derives from the Old French , meaning a shell pod or husk. Scales vary enormously in size, shape, structure, and extent, ranging from strong and rigid armour plates in fishes such as shrimpfishes and boxfishes, to microscopic or absent in fishes such as eels and anglerfishes. The morphology of a scale can be used to identify the species of fish it came from. Scales originated within the jawless ostracoderms, ancestors to all jawed fishes today. Most bony fishes are covered with the cycloid scales of salmon and carp, or the ctenoid scales of perch, or the ganoid scales of sturgeons and gars. Cartilaginous fishes (sharks and rays) are covered with placoid scales. Some species ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fish Scale
A fish scale is a small rigid plate that grows out of the skin of a fish. The skin of most jawed fishes is covered with these protective scales, which can also provide effective camouflage through the use of reflection and colouration, as well as possible hydrodynamic advantages. The term ''scale'' derives from the Old French , meaning a shell pod or husk. Scales vary enormously in size, shape, structure, and extent, ranging from strong and rigid armour plates in fishes such as shrimpfishes and boxfishes, to microscopic or absent in fishes such as eels and anglerfishes. The morphology of a scale can be used to identify the species of fish it came from. Scales originated within the jawless ostracoderms, ancestors to all jawed fishes today. Most bony fishes are covered with the cycloid scales of salmon and carp, or the ctenoid scales of perch, or the ganoid scales of sturgeons and gars. Cartilaginous fishes (sharks and rays) are covered with placoid scales. Some species ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tooth Enamel
Tooth enamel is one of the four major tissues that make up the tooth in humans and many other animals, including some species of fish. It makes up the normally visible part of the tooth, covering the crown. The other major tissues are dentin, cementum, and dental pulp. It is a very hard, white to off-white, highly mineralised substance that acts as a barrier to protect the tooth but can become susceptible to degradation, especially by acids from food and drink. Calcium hardens the tooth enamel. In rare circumstances enamel fails to form, leaving the underlying dentin exposed on the surface. Features Enamel is the hardest substance in the human body and contains the highest percentage of minerals (at 96%),Ross ''et al.'', p. 485 with water and organic material composing the rest.Ten Cate's Oral Histology, Nancy, Elsevier, pp. 70–94 The primary mineral is hydroxyapatite, which is a crystalline calcium phosphate. Enamel is formed on the tooth while the tooth develops withi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cheirolepis
''Cheirolepis'' (from el, χείρ , 'hand' and el, λεπίς 'scale') is an extinct genus of ray-finned fish that lived in the Devonian period of Europe and North America. It is the only genus yet known within the family Cheirolepidae and the order Cheirolepiformes. It was among the most basal of the Devonian actinopterygians and is considered the first to possess the "standard" dermal cranial bones seen in later actinopterygians. ''Cheirolepis'' was a predatory freshwater and estuarine animal about long. It had a streamlined body with small, triangular ganoid scales similar to those of the Acanthodii. These scales had a basic structure typical of many early osteichthyans, with a superficial of ganoine overlying dentine, and a basal plate of bone. ''Cheirolepis'' had well-developed fins which gave it speed and stability, and was probably an active predator. Based on the size of its eyes, it hunted by sight. ''Cheirolepiss jaws, lined with sharp teeth, could be opened v ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spotted Gar (Lepisosteus Oculatus) (3149758934)
The spotted gar (''Lepisosteus oculatus'') is a freshwater fish native to North America that has an abundance of dark spots on its head, fins, and dart-like body. Spotted gar have an elongated mouth with many needle-like teeth to catch other fish and crustaceans. It is one of the smallest of the seven species of gar found in North America, growing 2–3 ft (0.61–0.91 m) in length and weighing 4-6 lb (1.8–2.7 kg) typically. Gars have diamond-shaped, thick, enamel (ganoid) scales. The name ''Lepisosteus'' is Greek for "bony scale". Gars are almost never eaten in the central and northern United States. They have high levels of mercury and are considered a cancer risk. Distribution and habitat The spotted gar is native to North America and its current range is from southern Ontario to the west from the Devils River in Texas east to the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico and southeast to the lower Apalachicola River in Florida. The gar population is small in t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tetrapod
Tetrapods (; ) are four-limbed vertebrate animals constituting the superclass Tetrapoda (). It includes extant and extinct amphibians, sauropsids ( reptiles, including dinosaurs and therefore birds) and synapsids ( pelycosaurs, extinct therapsids and all extant mammals). Tetrapods evolved from a clade of primitive semiaquatic animals known as the Tetrapodomorpha which, in turn, evolved from ancient lobe-finned fish (sarcopterygians) around 390 million years ago in the Middle Devonian period; their forms were transitional between lobe-finned fishes and true four-limbed tetrapods. Limbed vertebrates (tetrapods in the broad sense of the word) are first known from Middle Devonian trackways, and body fossils became common near the end of the Late Devonian but these were all aquatic. The first crown-tetrapods ( last common ancestors of extant tetrapods capable of terrestrial locomotion) appeared by the very early Carboniferous, 350 million years ago. The specific aquat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Amelogenin
Amelogenins are a group of protein isoforms produced by alternative splicing or proteolysis from the ''AMELX'' gene, on the X chromosome, and also the ''AMELY'' gene in males, on the Y chromosome. They are involved in amelogenesis, the development of enamel. Amelogenins are type of extracellular matrix protein, which, together with ameloblastins, enamelins and tuftelins, direct the mineralization of enamel to form a highly organized matrix of rods, interrod crystal and proteins. Although the precise role of amelogenin(s) in regulating the mineralization process is unknown, it is known that amelogenins are abundant during amelogenesis. Developing human enamel contains about 70% protein, 90% of which are amelogenins. Function Amelogenins are believed to be involved in the organizing of enamel rods during tooth development. The latest research indicates that these proteins regulate the initiation and growth of hydroxyapatite crystals during the mineralization of enamel. In a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Homology (biology)
In biology, homology is similarity due to shared ancestry between a pair of structures or genes in different taxa. A common example of homologous structures is the forelimbs of vertebrates, where the wings of bats and birds, the arms of primates, the front flippers of whales and the forelegs of four-legged vertebrates like dogs and crocodiles are all derived from the same ancestral tetrapod structure. Evolutionary biology explains homologous structures adapted to different purposes as the result of descent with modification from a common ancestor. The term was first applied to biology in a non-evolutionary context by the anatomist Richard Owen in 1843. Homology was later explained by Charles Darwin's theory of evolution in 1859, but had been observed before this, from Aristotle onwards, and it was explicitly analysed by Pierre Belon in 1555. In developmental biology, organs that developed in the embryo in the same manner and from similar origins, such as from matching prim ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Acanthodii
Acanthodii or acanthodians is an extinct class of gnathostomes (jawed fishes), typically considered a paraphyletic group. They are currently considered to represent a grade of various fish lineages leading up to the extant Chondrichthyes, which includes living sharks, rays, and chimaeras. Acanthodians possess a mosaic of features shared with both osteichthyans (bony fish) and chondrichthyans (cartilaginous fish). In general body shape, they were similar to modern sharks, but their epidermis was covered with tiny rhomboid platelets like the scales of holosteians ( gars, bowfins). A lower Silurian species, ''Fanjingshania renovata'', attributed to Climatiiformes is the oldest chondrichthyan with known anatomical features. The popular name "spiny sharks" is because they were superficially shark-shaped, with a streamlined body, paired fins, a strongly upturned tail, and stout, largely immovable bony spines supporting all the fins except the tail—hence, "spiny sharks". Howev ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Synapomorphy
In phylogenetics, an apomorphy (or derived trait) is a novel character or character state that has evolved from its ancestral form (or plesiomorphy). A synapomorphy is an apomorphy shared by two or more taxa and is therefore hypothesized to have evolved in their most recent common ancestor. ) In cladistics, synapomorphy implies homology. Examples of apomorphy are the presence of erect gait, fur, the evolution of three middle ear bones, and mammary glands in mammals but not in other vertebrate animals such as amphibians or reptiles, which have retained their ancestral traits of a sprawling gait and lack of fur. Thus, these derived traits are also synapomorphies of mammals in general as they are not shared by other vertebrate animals. Etymology The word —coined by German entomologist Willi Hennig—is derived from the Ancient Greek words (''sún''), meaning "with, together"; (''apó''), meaning "away from"; and (''morphḗ''), meaning "shape, form". Clade analysis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stem Group
In phylogenetics, the crown group or crown assemblage is a collection of species composed of the living representatives of the collection, the most recent common ancestor of the collection, and all descendants of the most recent common ancestor. It is thus a way of defining a clade, a group consisting of a species and all its extant or extinct descendants. For example, Neornithes (birds) can be defined as a crown group, which includes the most recent common ancestor of all modern birds, and all of its extant or extinct descendants. The concept was developed by Willi Hennig, the formulator of phylogenetic systematics, as a way of classifying living organisms relative to their extinct relatives in his "Die Stammesgeschichte der Insekten", and the "crown" and "stem" group terminology was coined by R. P. S. Jefferies in 1979. Though formulated in the 1970s, the term was not commonly used until its reintroduction in 2000 by Graham Budd and Sören Jensen. Contents of the crown gr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Taxon
In biology, a taxon ( back-formation from '' taxonomy''; plural taxa) is a group of one or more populations of an organism or organisms seen by taxonomists to form a unit. Although neither is required, a taxon is usually known by a particular name and given a particular ranking, especially if and when it is accepted or becomes established. It is very common, however, for taxonomists to remain at odds over what belongs to a taxon and the criteria used for inclusion. If a taxon is given a formal scientific name, its use is then governed by one of the nomenclature codes specifying which scientific name is correct for a particular grouping. Initial attempts at classifying and ordering organisms (plants and animals) were set forth in Carl Linnaeus's system in '' Systema Naturae'', 10th edition (1758), as well as an unpublished work by Bernard and Antoine Laurent de Jussieu. The idea of a unit-based system of biological classification was first made widely available in 1805 in t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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