Rhipidistia
clade of fishes
Rhipidistia, also known as Dipnotetrapodomorpha, is a clade of lobe-finned fishes which includes the tetrapods and lungfishes. Rhipidistia formerly referred to a subgroup of Sarcopterygii consisting of the Porolepiformes and Osteolepiformes, a definition that is now obsolete. However, as cladistic understanding of the vertebrates has improved over the last few decades, a monophyletic Rhipidistia is now understood to include the whole of Tetrapoda and the lungfishes.
Rhipidistia includes Porolepiformes and Dipnoi. Extensive fossilization of lungfishes has contributed to many evolutionary studies of this group. Evolution of autostylic jaw suspension, in which the palatoquadrate bone fuses to the cranium, and the lymph pumping "lymph heart" (later lost in mammals and flying birds), are unique to this group. Another feature shared by lungfish and tetrapods is the divided atrium, though it evolved convergently.
The precise time at which the choana of tetrapods evolved is debated, with some considering early rhipidistians as the first choanates. The feature is also present in modern lungfish but is probably a case of convergent evolution. The basal stem-lungfish Diabolepis did not possess it.
“Rhipidistia” enters the record as clade of fishes. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Rhipidistia, clade and fishes can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Rhipidistia” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.