Onychodontiformes (also known as Onychodontida and Struniiformes) is an order of prehistoric
sarcopterygian
Sarcopterygii (; ) — sometimes considered synonymous with Crossopterygii () — is a taxon (traditionally a class or subclass) of the bony fishes known as the lobe-finned fishes. The group Tetrapoda, a mostly terrestrial superclass includi ...
fish that lived during the
Devonian
The Devonian ( ) is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic era, spanning 60.3 million years from the end of the Silurian, million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Carboniferous, Mya. It is named after Devon, England, whe ...
period. The onychodontiforms are generally regarded as early-diverging members of the
coelacanth
The coelacanths ( ) are fish belonging to the order Actinistia that includes two extant species in the genus ''Latimeria'': the West Indian Ocean coelacanth (''Latimeria chalumnae''), primarily found near the Comoro Islands off the east coast ...
lineage.
Phylogeny
The following cladogram is adapted from Mondéjar-Fernández (2020). The study recovered Onychodontiformes as a
paraphyletic
In taxonomy (general), taxonomy, a group is paraphyletic if it consists of the group's most recent common ancestor, last common ancestor and most of its descendants, excluding a few Monophyly, monophyletic subgroups. The group is said to be pa ...
group, which is shown in green:
References
External links
Onychodontiformes at Palaeos
Prehistoric lobe-finned fish
Prehistoric fish orders
Devonian bony fish
Early Devonian first appearances
Famennian extinctions
Paraphyletic groups
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