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Actinopterygii

  • Animals
  • Grades 4-5
  • 175 words

Scientific name

Scientific name
Actinopterygii

How to say it in other languages

Chinese
辐鳍鱼纲
French
Actinoptérygiens
German
Strahlenflosser
Japanese
条鰭綱
Korean
조기어강
Portuguese
Actinopterígio
Russian
Лучепёрые рыбы

Facts from Wikipedia’s “Actinopterygii” page and Wikispecies (CC BY-SA 4.0).

The Actinopterygii is the class of ray-finned fishes.

The ray-finned fishes get their name from the fact their fins are webs of skin held by bony or horny spines (“rays”). This is different from the fleshy fins of the fish in the Sarcopterygii. Ray-finned fish first appeared in the Silurian period.

Actinopterygians are the largest class of vertebrates. There are nearly 25,000 species. They can be found in both fresh water and marine environments from the deep sea to the highest mountain streams.

Most of the living species are teleosts, which are late-comers to the fish domain. The first teleosts are in the Mesozoic era, yet now they make up 96% of all fish.

Taxonomy

  • Chondrostei (bichirs and sturgeons)
  • Neopterygii
  • Holostei (gars and bowfins)
  • Teleostei
  • Osteoglossomorpha
  • Elopomorpha (eels)
  • Clupeomorpha (herrings, anchovies)
  • Ostariophysi (goldfish, minnows, catfish, electric eels)
  • Protacanthopterygii (salmon, trout, pike)
  • Stenopterygii
  • Cyclosquamata
  • Scopelomorpha
  • Lampridiomorpha
  • Polymyxiomorpha
  • Paracanthopterygii (cod, anglerfish)
  • Acanthopterygii (mullets, flying fishes, sticklebacks, seahorses, flatfish, cichlids, mackerel, tuna, perch)

Where this page comes from

The article above is adapted from “Actinopterygii” on Simple English Wikipedia, by its contributors. We removed reference markers, navigation boxes and tables, expanded measurement templates into readable numbers, and kept the prose otherwise intact.

Both sources are published under CC BY-SA 4.0, so this page is published under the same licence. You may share and adapt it, including commercially, as long as you credit the original and keep the same licence.

Worksheets, answer keys and printable layouts elsewhere on K5Print are our own work and are not covered by this licence.