Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Early vertebrates and Primitive fish
- What is a fish?
- All vertebrates which aren't tetrapods
- Aquatic vertebrate
- (appendages - fins)
- Gills
- Aquatic vertebrate
- Paraphyletic group
- Skin with scales of dermal region
- Early vertebrates
- Early Cambrian fossils (535mya)
- China - lack mineralised tissues
- Heart and fin rays
- Mineralised tissue -
late Cambrian
- CONODONTS
- Microfossils made of Apatite:
Cambrian-Triassic
- Similar to dentine
- Diet: Marine algae/inverts
- Many vertebrate characteristics
- (but no gill slits)
- Diffusion?
- MINERALISED TISSUE
- Agnatha
- (Jawless fish)
- Hagfish & Lampreys
- Hagfish
(Myxinoidea)
- ~ 65 spp (all marine)
- Scavengers & predators
- Single nasal opening. Single
semi-circular canal
- Degenerate eyes (skin covered)
- Mucoid bag
- Skewed sex ratios (100:1)
- Eggs with tough covering and
attachment hooks
- Colonial/semi-colonial
- Lampreys
(Petromyzontia)
- 41spp ( ~50% parasitic)
- Marine & freshwater
- Cartilage pipe around
notochord (Arcualia)
- Simple digestive system
- Well developed kidney
- Oral gland anticoagulent
- 2 semicircular canals
- Chloride cells gills :
tidal ventilation
- No scales
- Eel like bodies
- No distinct stomach,
jaws or vertabrae
- Cartilaginous
- 5-16 pairs of gills
- Distinct Brain
- Ostracoderms
- Anapsids
- relationship in flux
- Lacked jaws -
movable mouth plates
- filter feed / soft bodied prey
- midline dorsal fins &
some pectoral
- Extinct: late devonian
- Jawless to Jaws
- Major evolutionary step: changes in
habitat/behaviourresources
- 1. Ancestral Agnathan: unjointed branchial arches
- 2. Jointed branchial arches increase ventilation
- 3. Mouth closing ventilatory jaws
- 4. Early jawed Gnathostome
- Improved locomotion, sensory and
ciculatory systems
- Silurian -> mid Ordovician
- 2nd Hox duplication event
- Enlarged forebrain
- Lateral line system
- 4 recognised clades
- Gnathostomata
- Class: Placoderms
- Plated skin
- Plates hinged
- Internal skeleton: bone & cartilage
- Plated teeth: Ptyctodontids
- Early specimens - no teeth.
Later on - true teeth
- Primarily marine but some in
estuaries and fresh water
- Primary benthic - dorsoventrally flattened
- External pelvic appendages
- Class: Acanthodians
- Many short spines and ventral fins
- Slender bodied
- Mid Ordovician
- Scales and heterocercal tail -
primarily midwater
- No teeth - filter feeders
- Class: Condrychthyes (cartilaginous fish)
- Subclass: Elasmobranchii
- Sharks, skates, rays
- Subclass: Holocephali
- Chimaeras & ghost fish
- Osteichthyes (bony fish)
- Class: Sarcopterygii
- Lobe finned fish
- Class: Actinopterygii
- Ray finned fish