Skip Navigation

American Zoologist 1981 21(1):83-101; doi:10.1093/icb/21.1.83
© 1981 by The Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow Request Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by LIEM, K. F.
Right arrow Articles by Greenwood, P.H.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

A Functional Approach to the Phylogeny of the Pharyngognath Teleosts1

KAREL F. LIEM and P.H. Greenwood
Musem of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138
Department of Zoology, British Museum (Natural History) London SW7 5BD, England

SYNOPSIS. Functional morphological analysis has revealed the existence of three functionally and morphologically different mechanisms underlying the tongue-parasphenoid and pharyngeal-parasphenoid bites in advanced teleost fishes. The bite is specialized differently in Pristolepis and the Anabantoidei, and in a primitive condition in both the Nandidae andChanniformes. These taxa belong to at least three unrelated lineages and do not share a commonancestry as was previously postulated. It has been possible to show how an originally primitive character can acquire a new biological and phylogenetic meaning by being integrated into a specialized functional complex. Based on functional data on the pharyngeal jaw apparatus, a new hypothesis is proposed stating that the Cichlidae, Embiotocidae, Labridae, Odacidae and Scaridae represent a monophyletic assemblage. This case study has demonstrated that reciprocal illumination of functional morphological and phylogenetic findings can lead to: (1) better tested and more precise phylogenetic hypotheses; (2) the construction of new hypotheses on the basis of specialized character complexes which were unrecognized by the use of a purely descriptive morphological approach


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer:
Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.