What is the most diverse group of bony fishes?

What is the most diverse group of bony fishes?

Osteichthyes
Osteichthyes are a taxonomic grouping of bony fishes. This group includes ray-finned fishes (class: Actinopterygii) and lobe-finned fishes (class: Sarcopterygii). This highly diverse group of fishes, which contains almost all fish species, is the most diverse group of vertebrates today.

What is the most diverse fish group?

Bony fishes
‘ Bony fishes are the most diverse of all groups of fishes and are also the most diverse group of vertebrates alive today, with approximately 29,000 living species. Bony fishes include two subgroups—the ray-finned fishes and the lobe-finned fishes.

Which is the member of osteichthyes?

Class Osteichthyes includes all bony fishes. Like all fishes, Osteichthyes are cold-blooded vertebrates that breathe through gills and use fins for swimming. Bony fishes share several distinguishing features: a skeleton of bone, scales, paired fins, one pair of gill openings, jaws, and paired nostrils.

What are the two major categories of osteichthyes bony fish?

Osteichthyes, or bony fishes, includes two major groups: Sarcopterygii, or lobe-finned fishes, and Actinopterygii, or ray-finned fishes. The characteristics that unite this diverse group include lungs or a gas-filled swim bladder derived from lungs, segmented fin rays, bone, and bony scales.

What group of fishes are most abundant today?

The vast majority of fish alive today — approximately 96 percent — are known as teleosts, a group of ray-finned fish that emerged 260 million years ago. Evolutionary biologists and paleontologists since Darwin have offered hypotheses to explain why teleosts seem to have “out-evolved” other groups.

What is the most diverse clade of vertebrata in terms of number of species?

The most diverse clade of vertebrate in terms of number of species is Actinopterygii (ray-fined fish).

What are the three major fish groups?

Fishes are typically divided into three groups: superclass Agnatha (jawless fishes), class Chondrichthyes (cartilaginous fishes), and superclass Osteichthyes (bony fishes).

What kind of Endoskeleton is present in the members of Class Osteichthyes?

Bony fishes (osteichthyes) are a diverse and large group that have an ossified endoskeleton. They include lobe- (sarcopterygii) and ray-finned (actinopterygii) fishes….4 “Modern” Fish Eggs.

Species Egg Diameter (mm) ZP Width (μm)
Pelagic Eggsa
Acipenser transmontanus (White sturgeon) 3.5–4.0 100

Which group of fishes is most closely related to tetrapods?

lungfishes
Since the discovery of the coelacanth, Latimeria chalumnae, more than 50 years ago, paleontologists and comparative morphologists have debated whether coelacanths or lungfishes, two groups of lobe-finned fishes, are the closest living relatives of land vertebrates (Tetrapoda).

How do you explain the diversity of fishes?

According to FishBase, 34,300 species of fish had been described as of September 2020. That is more than the combined total of all other vertebrate species: mammals, amphibians, reptiles and birds. Fish species diversity is roughly divided equally between marine (oceanic) and freshwater ecosystems.

How many fish are there in the Osteichthyes group?

They are a very diverse group which includes 45 orders with more than 28,000 species currently identified (Betancur-R et al., 2013 ). The group Osteichthyes is characterised by fish species that have skeletons primarily composed of bone and is divided into the ray-finned fish (Actinopterygii) and lobe-finned fish (Sarcopterygii).

Which is the best description of an Osteichthyes?

Osteichthyes is a class of fishes included in the division Gnathostomata, which includes all the vertebrates having jaws. Jawless fishes are included in the division Agnatha and the class Cyclostomata. Gnathostomata is divided into two superclasses, viz. Pisces (having fins) and Tetrapoda (bear limbs).

How many gill arches does an Osteichthyes have?

Traditionally, Osteichthyes is considered a class, recognised on having a swim bladder, only three pairs of gill arches, hidden behind a bony operculum and a predominately bony skeleton.

Are there any tetrapods in the Osteichthyes family?

Until recently, the view of most ichthyologists has been that Osteichthyes were paraphyletic and include only fishes. However, since 2013 widely cited ichthyology papers have been published with phylogenetic trees that treat the Osteichthyes as a clade including tetrapods.