Osteichthyes (Bony Fish)

An Osteichthyes (Bony Fish) is a fish with a skeleton primarily composed of bone (rather than cartilage).

Context:
- It can range from being a Sarcopterygii (lobe-finned fish) with fleshy, lobed, paired fins, which are joined to the body by a single bone, to being a Actinopterygii (ray-finned fish) with fins supported by sharp, bony rays.
- It can (typically) have a Swim Bladder.
- ...
Example(s):
- a Sarcopterygii (lobe-finned fish), such as: coelacanth and lungfish.
- a Actinopterygii (ray-finned fish), such as:
  - a Salmoniformes fish, such as: salmon and trout.
  - a Scorpaeniformes fish, such as: sablefish and rockfish.
  - a Perciform Fish, such as a Bass or Perch.
  - a Cypriniform Fish, such as a Carp or Goldfish.
- ...
Counter-Example(s):
- a Chondrichthyan, such as a shark or ray, which have skeletons made of cartilage rather than bone.
- a Cephalopod, such as an octopus or squid, which are marine invertebrates, not fish.
See: Fish, Marine Biology, Aquatic Animal, Chondrichthyes, Sarcopterygii, Actinopterygii, Jawed Bony Fish, Chondrichthyes, Paraphyletic, Neoceratodus Forsteri, Iridescent Shark, Acipenser Oxyrinchus.

References

(Wikipedia, 2020) ⇒ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteichthyes Retrieved:2020-5-12.
- Osteichthyes, popularly referred to as the bony fish, is a diverse taxonomic group of fish that have skeletons primarily composed of bone tissue, as opposed to cartilage. The vast majority of fish are members of Osteichthyes, which is an extremely diverse and abundant group consisting of 45 orders, and over 435 families and 28,000 species. ^[1] It is the largest class of vertebrates in existence today. The group Osteichthyes is divided into the ray-finned fish (Actinopterygii) and lobe-finned fish (Sarcopterygii). The oldest known fossils of bony fish are about 420 million years old, which are also transitional fossils, showing a tooth pattern that is in between the tooth rows of sharks and bony fishes. ^[2] Osteichthyes can be compared to Euteleostomi. In paleontology, the terms are synonymous. In ichthyology, the difference is that Euteleostomi presents a cladistic view which includes the terrestrial tetrapods that evolved from lobe-finned fish, whereas prior to 2014 the view of most ichthyologists was that Osteichthyes includes only fishes, and were therefore paraphyletic. However, in 2014, an ichthyology paper was published with phylogenetic trees that treat the Osteichthyes as a clade including tetrapods.