Lungfish
Related Category: Vertebrate Zoology
common name for any of a group of fish belonging to the families Ceratodontidae and Lepidosirenidae, found in the rivers of South America, Africa, and Australia.
Lungfish are best-known for retaining characteristics primitive within the Osteichthyes, including the ability to breathe air, and structures primitive within Sarcopterygii, including the presence of lobed fins with a well-developed internal skeleton.
Lungfish behavior and facts
When the shallow water it lives in evaporates during dry spells, a lungfish secretes a thin mucus layer around itself that dries into a cocoon.
Lungfish
Below you will find a collection of photos from various places. Except where noted, pictures were taken by Rhett A. Butler, copyright 1994-2007. While these images are the property of mongabay.
Lungfish Provides Insight to Life on Land: 'Humans Are Just Modified Fish' ...
Lungfish: African Lungfish (Protopterus annectens), Australian Lungfish (Neoceratodus forsteri) Ceratodontidae, Coelacanth (Latimeria chalumnae), Ornate Bichir (Polypterus ornatipinnus) Polypteridae, Hags ...
This lungfish can literally bound across the floor on its fins.
208 Species Discovered in Asia's Mekong Region in 1 Year
Region has some of most diverse, endangered species on planet.
An African Lungfish in the U.S. National Aquarium
An Alcock's Spikefish collected off Raine Island
An Alfonsino caught south-east of Sydney
An Ambon Damsel at north-west Solitary Island ...
In the lungfish, sharks and rays the rectum opens into the cloaca which also receives wastes (urine) from the kidneys and material from the reproductive organs.
A rare and rather shy specialist that feeds on lungfish in vast papyrus swamps, it is still usually considered as a monotypic family although recent evidence suggests it is a relative of pelicans.
There is also a group of animals that are called the Lungfishes. The lungfishes are a subclass of the Osteichthyes (bony fishes). These fish have lungs and internal nostrils, too! ...
Lobe-finned fishes (Sarcopterygii) contain the coelacanths, the lungfish and various other extinct groups. This class of fish was ancestral to all of the four-legged vertebrates: amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals.
The only other primitive group to have a similar arrangement are the freshwater lungfish. It is from fish like these that the first four-legged land animals are thought to have developed.
Debate still rages though as to whether the coelacanths, presumed to be close relatives of the Rhipidistia fishes from which tetrapod amphibians supposedly arose, are our closest tetrapod ancestors, or if lungfishes, another very ancient line, ...
Catfish and lungfish are among the most frequent. They also catch and eat some water birds, including their young. The birds most frequently taken include ibis, storks, herons and spoonbills and especially the Lesser Flamingo.
Includes coelacanths, lungfishes, gars, tarpon, eels, herring, catfishes, pike, salmon, lanternfishes, cod, anglerfishes, silversides, seahorses, scorpionfishes, perches, cichlids, tuna, flounders, & puffers
CARTILAGINOUS FISH ...
CERATODONTIFORMES
Australian lungfishes
LEPIDOSIRENIFORMES
South American lungfishes, African lungfishes ...
Indeed, the five living classes of fish, which includes hagfish, lampreys, cartilaginous fish (sharks and rays), lobe-finned fish (coelacanths and lungfish) and bony fish, are only distantly related to each other.
Lobe-finned fishes hold special interest to evolutionary biologists because members of this group are thought to have given rise to the first four-legged land vertebrates (tetrapods). Modern lobe-finned fishes include lungfishes and coelacanths.
 See also: Coral, Shark, Snake, Lizard, Salamander
  
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