Talk:Sarcopterygii

Untitled
is this the club finned fish ?

Crossopterygian
Crossopterygian redirects here, but does not appear in the article. Can someone explain? Thanks. — Epastore 03:32, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

The phrase "these fish may be ancestors of land vertebrates" may be a bit misleading in the context of this article. It is likely that an ancient animal that we would classify as a Sarcopterygian (e.g. Tiktaalik) did in fact give rise to land vertebrates, but as the scope of this article encompasses extant Sarcopterygii as well, I suggest changing this to "these fish may be related to the ancestor of land vertebrates" or “ancestral members of this class may have also given rise to land vertebrates.” This may help to alleviate any potential confusion of the "if land vertebrates evolved from Sarcopterygians, why are there still Sarcopterygians?" sort. TimAEvans 20:55, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Ocean-dwellers
There's a picture of a coelacanth on the page, with the caption "Coelacanths are the only sarcopterygians that live in the ocean"

Since whales live in the ocean, whales are mammals, mammals are tetrapods, and tetrapods are sarcopterygians, isn't this statement untrue? 75.165.1.80 19:53, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Development of fin morphology
If sarcopterygians developed in the ocean, what's the understanding on why their caracteristic "stalked" fins evolved? Bottom dwellers that could use the ability to better navigate around objects? Pelagic but with better fine-motor fin control skills? Something else entirely? --Tropylium (talk) 10:47, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Taxonomic ranks
A superclass can't be part of a subclass. The Superclass Tetrapoda diverged FROM this class and subclass, which is different from being part of it as the phylogeny seems to imply. There were sufficient mutations for the taxon to diverge. -The Mysterious El Willstro 209.183.185.77 (talk) 18:38, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Taxonomic ranks are totally subjective and randomly applied, not based on anything like divergence or mutations. According to the listed source, the Superclass is indeed a part of the sub-class. This is a compromise, because almost nobody uses ranks anymore and those who do need to adjust to the fact that everybody else treats them as nested clades. Dinoguy2 (talk) 19:35, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
 * False, I'm a Biology Major currently studying Invertebrate Zoology, and named ranks are a very common, even mainstream, means of making taxonomy easier to remember. (Frankly that's what they've always been, as their are many more threshholds of genetic similarity than there are named ranks.)
 * The ICZN uses ranks, and in fact modifies listed ranks of taxa based solely on genetic similarity. For example, the Taxon Oligochaeta was formerly thought to be a full class but is now known, based on the level of genetic similarity among its members, to be either a subclass or an order (not sure which off hand).
 * Also, if "almost nobody" used ranks, unranked taxonomies would not be called alternative phylogenies, but in fact that is what they are called. The Mysterious El Willstro (talk) 17:41, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
 * "The classification below follows Benton 2004, and uses a synthesis of rank-based Linnaean taxonomy and also reflects evolutionary relationships."
 * -- that is, it's hybrid. It uses Linnaean ranks and cladistic relationships. Bob the WikipediaN (talk • contribs) 18:39, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Be that as it may I object (and yes I am a biologist albeit a 3rd Year Major and not just a civilian from the general public) to placing a higher rank as part of a lower rank, because it creates the very confusion that ranked taxa in such hybridized schemes are maintained in order to eliminate. Besides, considering tetrapods to be fish is analogous to considering eukaryotes and archeans to be bacteria, just at a stricter threshhold of genetic similarity. (Stricter threshholds of similarity are what lower ranks are supposed to represent.) Anyway, allowing taxa to diverge without remaining forever part of their ancestral taxa eliminates the problem of, ultimately, concluding that all other life is just bacteria in disguise.
 * I should point out that all modernized Linnean schemes are partially cladistic in that genetic similarity is their source, and the purpose of named ranks (Domain, Kingdom, Phylum, etc.) is to make the manner in which taxa fit into each more memorable and easier to look up in any document. The Mysterious El Willstro (talk) 23:48, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Publish your classification in a paper or book and we can use it. And what's wrong with concluding that all life is bacteria in disguise? That seems to be precisely the case to me... MMartyniuk (talk) 00:04, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I just might remember that when I get my Ph. D. Sometime before that (but not this instant) I could take another gander at my old Biology 110 book, look at its sources, and figure out where minor updates might be needed. The Mysterious El Willstro (talk) 00:21, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I'll also point out the same hybrid cladistic-Linnaean system is used not only across Wikipedia's Tree of Life WikiProject but also at databases which use scholarly sources; the Paleobiology Database is one that comes to mind. Bob the WikipediaN (talk • contribs) 03:18, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Sarcopterygii stubs
Please, take a look at this proposal for creating a Category:Sarcopterygii stubs. Regards, --Fabio Descalzi, aka Fadesga (talk) 15:49, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Cladogram up to date?
The cladogram featured in the article is based on data from 1995. Is this current? Some of the contained taxa have much more recent coverage. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Animalparty (talk • contribs) 01:00, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

how do these relate to Alligator Gars?
Alligator_gar 2605:A601:46C:4101:CABC:C8FF:FEA5:82F4 (talk) 01:45, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

Gars are actinopterygians, not sarcopterygians. Completely different lineage of bony fishes.Ozraptor4 (talk) 02:07, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

Elpistostegalia not an ancestor of Tetrapoda
Elpistostegalia needs to be removed from its current position in the cladogram, as this is neither supported by the reference (Tree of Life Web Project) nor does it fit with any of the cladograms I've seen in any serious literature. It's a side-branch, the nearest one to Stegocephalia in the sense used here, i.e., tetrapod by the apomorphy-based definition of "four legs bearing digits."

On a different topic, saying that Crossopterygii is sometimes used as a synonym is a little dated. If we're going to mention Crossopterygii we should mention that is currently used as the name of one of the two major clades of Sarcopterygii, the one represent by living coelacanths. The other one is Rhipidistia (in the current sense, not the older parphyletic sense) which contains two major clades: Dipnomorpha and Tetrapodamorpha.

In taxonomy, it's not uncommon for old taxon names to become obsolete, usually through the discovery that they are paraphyletic, only to be recycled with new definitions. That's what happened to "dinosaur" and "ape." The same thing happened with Crossopterygii, Stegocephalia, and Rhipidistia. We're going to confuse readers if we first tell them what taxon names used to mean, and then further down in the article tell them what they mean now. Zyxwv99 (talk) 19:03, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

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Standardizing Language Related to Tetrapoda
The article presently contains a number of inconsistencies related to the inclusion of tetrapods, such as the ambiguous use of the term "lobe-finned fish" for both the group Sarcopterygii as a whole and for the non-tetrapod members of the group, or the outright and unstated exclusion of tetrapods when talking about the group. Case in point: a statement in the article that, "The largest known lobe-finned fish was Rhizodus hibberti," is only true if tetrapods are excluded, as Balaenoptera musculus (the blue whale) is far and away the largest member of the Sarcopterygii if tetrapods aren't specifically excluded. As such, for complete accuracy, I propose that the article either include specific reference whenever tetrapods are excluded from a statement, or else be rewritten to not exclude tetrapods. MourningSilver (talk) 13:53, 29 March 2023 (UTC)


 * I think just in general, the language in this article is really convoluted. It almost feels like it was written to be confusing on purpose. Maybe I'm just tired, but I am having, quite frankly, a horrible time reading it, and the intro especially could be rewritten to be clearer. I don't know if a casual reader would consider the article helpful at all. Zpicey (talk) 09:09, 8 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Okay I definitely was just tired. The article's style still isn't great but it's not nearly as bad as I make it sound in my first comment. I bet it'll improve even more once I get some sleep! Zpicey (talk) 00:54, 9 May 2023 (UTC)