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Teleostomi
Teleostomi (from Greek τελεος, complete + Greek στόμα, mouth) is an obsolete taxon of jawed vertebrates that supposedly includes the tetrapods, bony fish, and the wholly extinct acanthodian fish. Key characters of this group include an operculum and a single pair of respiratory openings, features which were lost or modified in some later representatives. The teleostomes include all jawed vertebrates except the chondrichthyans and the extinct class Placodermi. Recent studies indicate that Osteichthyes evolved from placoderms like '' Entelognathus'', while acanthodians are more closely related to modern chondrichthyes. Teleostomi, therefore, is not a valid, natural clade, but a paraphyletic group of species. Origins The origins of the teleostomes are obscure. They are traditionally assumed to be descendants of the Acanthodians ("spiny sharks") from the Early Silurian Period; however, more recent discoveries show that the "spiny sharks" are actually a paraphyletic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Actinopterygii
Actinopterygii (; ), members of which are known as ray-finned fish or actinopterygians, is a class (biology), class of Osteichthyes, bony fish that comprise over 50% of living vertebrate species. They are so called because of their lightly built fish fin, fins made of webbings of skin supported by radially extended thin bony spine (zoology), spines called ''lepidotrichia'', as opposed to the bulkier, fleshy lobed fins of the sister taxon, sister clade Sarcopterygii (lobe-finned fish). Resembling folding fans, the actinopterygian fins can easily change shape and wetted area, providing superior thrust-to-weight ratios per movement compared to sarcopterygian and chondrichthyian fins. The fin rays attach directly to the proximal or basal skeletal elements, the radials, which represent the articulation (anatomy), articulation between these fins and the internal skeleton (e.g., pelvic and pectoral girdles). The vast majority of actinopterygians are teleosts. By species count, they domi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gnathostomata
Gnathostomata (; from Ancient Greek: (') 'jaw' + (') 'mouth') are jawed vertebrates. Gnathostome diversity comprises roughly 60,000 species, which accounts for 99% of all extant vertebrates, including all living bony fishes (both ray-finned and lobe-finned, including their terrestrial tetrapod relatives) and cartilaginous fishes, as well as extinct prehistoric fish such as placoderms and acanthodians. Most gnathostomes have retained ancestral traits like true teeth, a stomach, and paired appendages ( pectoral and pelvic fins, limbs, wings, etc.). Other traits are elastin, horizontal semicircular canal of the inner ear, myelinated neurons, and an adaptive immune system which has discrete secondary lymphoid organs (spleen and thymus) and uses V(D)J recombination to create antigen recognition sites, rather than using genetic recombination in the variable lymphocyte receptor gene. It is now assumed that Gnathostomata evolved from ancestors that already possessed two pairs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Osteichthyes
Osteichthyes ( ; ), also known as osteichthyans or commonly referred to as the bony fish, is a Biodiversity, diverse clade of vertebrate animals that have endoskeletons primarily composed of bone tissue. They can be contrasted with the Chondrichthyes (cartilaginous fish) and the extinct placoderms and acanthodians, which have endoskeletons primarily composed of cartilage. The vast majority of extant taxon, extant fish are members of Osteichthyes, being an extremely diverse and abundant group consisting of 45 order (biology), orders, over 435 family (biology), families and 28,000 species. The group is divided into two main clades, the ray-finned fish (Actinopterygii, which makes up the vast majority of extant fish) and the lobe-finned fish (Sarcopterygii, which gave rise to all land vertebrates, i.e. tetrapods). The oldest known fossils of bony fish are about 425 million years old from the late Silurian, which are also transitional fossils showing a dentition, tooth pattern th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Euteleostomi
Euteleostomi (''Eu- teleostomi'', where ''Eu-'' comes from Greek εὖ 'well, good' or Euteleostomes, also known as "bony vertebrates") is a successful clade that includes more than 90% of the living species of vertebrates. Both its major subgroups are successful today: Actinopterygii includes most extant bony fish species, and Sarcopterygii includes the tetrapods. Euteleostomes originally all had an endochondral bone, fins with lepidotrichs (fin rays), jaws lined by maxillary, premaxillary, and dentary bones composed of dermal bone, and lungs. Many of these characters have since been lost by descendant groups, however, such as lepidotrichs lost in tetrapods, and bone lost among the chondrostean fishes. Lungs have been retained in dipnoi (lungfish), and many tetrapods (birds, mammals, reptiles, and some amphibians). In many ray-finned fishes, lungs have evolved into swim bladders for regulating buoyancy, while in others they continue to be used as respiratory gas bladders. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ordovician
The Ordovician ( ) is a geologic period and System (geology), system, the second of six periods of the Paleozoic Era (geology), Era, and the second of twelve periods of the Phanerozoic Eon (geology), Eon. The Ordovician spans 41.6 million years from the end of the Cambrian Period Megaannum, Ma (million years ago) to the start of the Silurian Period Ma. The Ordovician, named after the Celtic Britons, Welsh tribe of the Ordovices, was defined by Charles Lapworth in 1879 to resolve a dispute between followers of Adam Sedgwick and Roderick Murchison, who were placing the same Rock (geology), rock beds in North Wales in the Cambrian and Silurian systems, respectively. Lapworth recognized that the fossil fauna in the disputed Stratum, strata were different from those of either the Cambrian or the Silurian systems, and placed them in a system of their own. The Ordovician received international approval in 1960 (forty years after Lapworth's death), when it was adopted as an official per ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Operculum (fish)
The operculum is a series of bones found in bony fish and chimaeras that serves as a facial support structure and a protective covering for the gills; it is also used for respiration and feeding. Anatomy The opercular series contains four bone segments known as the preoperculum, suboperculum, interoperculum and operculum. The preoperculum is a crescent-shaped structure that has a series of ridges directed posterodorsally to the organism’s canal pores. The preoperculum can be located through an exposed condyle that is present immediately under its ventral margin; it also borders the operculum, suboperculum, and interoperculum posteriorly. The suboperculum is rectangular in shape in most bony fish and is located ventral to the preoperculum and operculum components. It is the thinnest bone segment out of the opercular series and is located directly above the gills. The interoperculum is triangular shaped and borders the suboperculum posterodorsally and the preoperculum anterodo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chondrichthyes
Chondrichthyes (; ) is a class of jawed fish that contains the cartilaginous fish or chondrichthyans, which all have skeletons primarily composed of cartilage. They can be contrasted with the Osteichthyes or ''bony fish'', which have skeletons primarily composed of bone tissue. Chondrichthyes are aquatic vertebrates with paired fins, paired nares, placoid scales, conus arteriosus in the heart, and a lack of opercula and swim bladders. Within the infraphylum Gnathostomata, cartilaginous fishes are distinct from all other jawed vertebrates. The class is divided into two subclasses: Elasmobranchii (sharks, rays, skates and sawfish) and Holocephali ( chimaeras, sometimes called ghost sharks, which are sometimes separated into their own class). Extant chondrichthyans range in size from the finless sleeper ray to the over whale shark. Anatomy Skeleton The skeleton is cartilaginous. The notochord is gradually replaced by a vertebral column during development, e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Class (biology)
In biological classification, class () is a taxonomic rank, as well as a taxonomic unit, a taxon, in that rank. It is a group of related taxonomic orders. Other well-known ranks in descending order of size are domain, kingdom, phylum, order, family, genus, and species, with class ranking between phylum and order. History The class as a distinct rank of biological classification having its own distinctive name – and not just called a ''top-level genus'' ''(genus summum)'' – was first introduced by French botanist Joseph Pitton de Tournefort in the classification of plants that appeared in his '' Eléments de botanique'' of 1694. Insofar as a general definition of a class is available, it has historically been conceived as embracing taxa that combine a distinct ''grade'' of organization—i.e. a 'level of complexity', measured in terms of how differentiated their organ systems are into distinct regions or sub-organs—with a distinct ''type'' of construction, whic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Extinction (biology)
Extinction is the termination of an organism by the death of its Endling, last member. A taxon may become Functional extinction, functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to Reproduction, reproduce and recover. As a species' potential Range (biology), range may be very large, determining this moment is difficult, and is usually done retrospectively. This difficulty leads to phenomena such as Lazarus taxon, Lazarus taxa, where a species presumed extinct abruptly "reappears" (typically in the Fossil, fossil record) after a period of apparent absence. Over five billion species are estimated to have died out. It is estimated that there are currently around 8.7 million species of eukaryotes globally, possibly many times more if microorganisms are included. Notable extinct animal species include Dinosaur, non-avian dinosaurs, Machairodontinae, saber-toothed cats, and mammoths. Through evolution, species arise through the process of specia ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Placodermi
Placoderms (from Ancient Greek πλάξ 'plax'', ''plakos''' plate' and δέρμα 'derma'''skin') are vertebrate animals of the class Placodermi, an extinct group of prehistoric fish known from Paleozoic fossils during the Silurian and the Devonian periods. While their endoskeletons are mainly cartilaginous, their head and thorax were covered by articulated armoured plates (hence the name), and the rest of the body was scaled or naked depending on the species. Placoderms were among the first jawed fish (their jaws likely evolved from the first pair of gill arches), as well as the first vertebrates to have true teeth. They were also the first fish clade to develop pelvic fins, the second set of paired fins and the homologous precursor to hindlimbs in tetrapods. 380-million-year-old fossils of three other genera, '' Incisoscutum'', '' Materpiscis'' and '' Austroptyctodus'', represent the oldest known examples of live birth. Placoderms are thought to be paraphyletic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
