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Evolution of fish. The Devonian period (419–359 Mya), also known as the Age of Fishes, saw the development of early sharks, armoured placoderms and various lobe-finned fish, including the tetrapod transitional species. The evolution of fish began about 530 million years ago during the Cambrian explosion. It was during this time that the early ...
A fish with limb-like fins that could take it onto land. [75] It is an example from several lines of ancient sarcopterygian fish developing adaptations to the oxygen-poor shallow-water habitats of its time, which led to the evolution of tetrapods. [61]
Chondrichthyes (/ kɒnˈdrɪkθiiːz /; 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. They can be contrasted with the Osteichthyes or bony fish, which have ...
By the Upper Devonian period, the fin-limb transition as well as other skeletal changes such as gill arch reduction, opercular series loss, mid-line fin loss, and scale reduction were already completed in many aquatic organisms. [ 3] As aquatic tetrapods began their transition to land, several skeletal changes are thought to have occurred to ...
Freshwater fish are fish species that spend some or all of their lives in bodies of fresh water such as rivers, lakes and inland wetlands, where the salinity is less than 1.05%. These environments differ from marine habitats in many ways, especially the difference in levels of osmolarity. To survive in fresh water, fish need a range of ...
Fish gill. Gill arches bearing gills in a pike. Gills allow fish to breathe underwater. Respiratory mechanism in bony fish. The fish draws oxygen-rich water in through the mouth (left). It then pumps it over gills so oxygen enters the bloodstream, and allows oxygen-depleted water to exit through the gill slits (right) Fish gills are organs that ...
Fish have evolved sophisticated ways of using colouration. For example, prey fish have ways of using colouration to make it more difficult for visual predators to see them. In pelagic fish, these adaptations are mainly concerned with a reduction in silhouette, a form of camouflage. One method of achieving this is to reduce the area of their ...
Vision is an important sensory system for most species of fish. Fish eyes are similar to those of terrestrial vertebrates like birds and mammals, but have a more spherical lens. Their retinas generally have both rod cells and cone cells (for scotopic and photopic vision), and most species have colour vision.