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Chondrichthyes (/ k ɒ n ˈ d r ɪ k θ i iː z /; from Ancient Greek χόνδρος (khóndros) 'cartilage' and ἰχθύς (ikhthús) 'fish') is a class of jawed fish that contains the cartilaginous fish or chondrichthyans, which all have skeletons primarily composed of cartilage.
The following is the full list of the extant species in Class Chondrichthyes, or the cartilaginous fish. Members of this class have a backbone , gills , no swim bladder , jaws , and a skeleton made of cartilage , a soft, strong material as a replacement for bone .
Distinctively, these fish have no jaws. [15] Cartilaginous fish such as sharks also have simple, and presumably primitive, skull structures. The cranium is a single structure forming a case around the brain, enclosing the lower surface and the sides, but always at least partially open at the top as a large fontanelle.
Fishes are a paraphyletic group and for this reason, the class Pisces seen in older reference works is no longer used in formal taxonomy.Traditional classification divides fish into three extant classes (Agnatha, Chondrichthyes, and Osteichthyes), and with extinct forms sometimes classified within those groups, sometimes as their own classes: [1]
Batoids are flat-bodied, and, like sharks, are cartilaginous fish, meaning they have a boneless skeleton made of a tough, elastic cartilage. Most batoids have five ventral slot-like body openings called gill slits that lead from the gills, but the Hexatrygonidae have six. [3]
After the appearance of jawed fish (placoderms, acanthodians, sharks, etc.) about 420 million years ago, most ostracoderm species underwent a decline, and the last ostracoderms became extinct at the end of the Devonian period. More recent research indicates that fish with jaws had far less to do with the extinction of the ostracoderms than ...
Cartilaginous fish, such as sharks and rays, have jaws and skeletons made of cartilage rather than bone. Megalodon is an extinct species of shark that lived about 28 to 1.5 Ma. It looked much like a stocky version of the great white shark , but was much larger with fossil lengths reaching 20.3 metres (67 ft). [ 10 ]
The skate belongs to the class Chondrichthyes. This class consists of all the cartilaginous fishes, including sharks and stingrays. Chondrichthyes is divided into two subclasses; of which Elasmobranchii includes skates, rays, and sharks. Skates are the most diverse elasmobranch group, comprising over 20% of the known species.