Fish Codexery

Lungfish

Closest living relatives of tetrapods with air-breathing lungs.

Last updated

They are known for breathing air and having lobed fins with a well-developed internal skeleton.[1] Dipnoi is the class to which lungfish, which are freshwater vertebrates, belong.[1] A total of six lungfish species are currently known, with their habitats located in Africa, South America, and Australia.[2]

Scientific classification

  1. KingdomAnimalia
  2. PhylumChordata
  3. ClassDipnoi

Named by J. P. Müller, 1844

Sources: Wikipedia taxobox: Lungfish (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Quick Facts

Scientific classification
Class Dipnoi
Extant species
Six known species
Modern distribution
Africa, South America, Australia
Known for
  • Air-breathing lungs
  • lobed fins
  • closest living relatives of tetrapods
Distinctive feature
Tooth plates for crushing hard-shelled organisms

Facts from the source article.

Biology and range

Modern lungfish show significant reduction in marginal bones and a cartilaginous braincase.[3] Lungfish can be extremely long-lived.[4] Lungfish group fossils date back more than 410 million years, to the Early Devonian period.[2] Marine environments were home to the earliest lungfish, but freshwater habitats have been occupied by nearly all species that lived after the Carboniferous.[2]

A continuous cartilaginous notochord and well-developed teeth on the palate are features present in every lungfish.[3] The respiratory system of lungfish is notably specialized: their lungs connect directly to the larynx and pharynx, lacking a trachea.[5] While the Australian lungfish possesses a single lung, the majority of living lungfish species have two.[6] Instead of a true stomach, lungfish possess an intestinal spiral valve.[7]

Neoceratodus forsteri, the Queensland lungfish, is found only in Australia and represents the most primitive surviving form among the ancient lungfish lineages.[8]

What the specialist sources record

A 2022 Guardian article reports that Methuselah, an Australian lungfish at the California Academy of Sciences, is believed to be about 90 years old and the oldest aquarium fish in the world.[9] Methuselah was brought to the San Francisco museum in 1938 from Australia.[9] The same article notes that the previous oldest Australian lungfish, named Granddad, died in 2017 at the age of 95.[9] The Australian lungfish is now a threatened species and can no longer be exported from Australian waters.[9]

The World Register of Marine Species lists Dipnoi as a superclass with environment freshwater.[10]

References

  1. Wikipedia, "Lungfish" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "ITIS - Report: Dipnoi", www.itis.gov (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  2. Wikipedia, "Lungfish" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Kemp, "Evolutionary history of lungfishes with a new phylogeny of post-Devonian genera", Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 2017-04-01, p. 209–219 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  3. Wikipedia, "Lungfish" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Piper, Ross, "Extraordinary Animals: An encyclopedia of curious and unusual animals", Greenwood Press, 2007 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  4. Wikipedia, "Lungfish" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Methuselah: Oldest aquarium fish lives in San Francisco and likes belly rubs", The Guardian, 26 January 2022; "Chicago aquarium euthanizes 90 year-old lungfish", Star Tribune; CSIRO, "DNA reveals the true age of Granddad the lungfish", www.csiro.au; "Chicago aquarium euthanizes 90 year-old lungfish", Star Tribune (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  5. Wikipedia, "Lungfish" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Colleen Farmer, "Did lungs and the intracardiac shunt evolve to oxygenate the heart in vertebrates", Paleobiology, 1997, p. 358–372 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  6. Wikipedia, "Lungfish" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Wisenden, "Human Anatomy", Pearson Education, Inc, 2003; Hilber, S.A., "Gnathostome form & function", U. Florida, 2007 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  7. Wikipedia, "Lungfish" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Purkerson, M.L., "Electron microscopy of the intestine of the African lungfish, Protopterus aethiopicus", The Anatomical Record, 1975, p. 71–89 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  8. Wikipedia, "Lungfish" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Lake, "Australian Freshwater Fishes", Thomas Nelson Australia Pty. Ltd., 1978, p. 12; Allen, "Field Guide to the Freshwater Fishes of Australia.", Western Australia Museum, 2002, p. 54–55; Allen, "Field Guide to the Freshwater Fishes of Australia.", Western Australia Museum, 2002, p. 54–55; Kemp, "A New Species of Fossil Lungfish (Osteichthyes: Dipnoi) from the Cretaceous of Australia", Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 2020-05-03; Allen, "Field Guide to the Freshwater Fishes of Australia.", Western Australia Museum, 2002, p. 54–55; "Austral en.wikipedia.org
  9. "Methuselah: Oldest aquarium fish lives in San Francisco and likes belly rubs", The Guardian, 26 January 2022. facts only, no text reused. theguardian.com
  10. World Register of Marine Species, Dipnoi (AphiaID 1849341). CC BY 4.0. marinespecies.org

Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Lungfish (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.

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Sources

Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.

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