Amazon.com description: Product Description: The origin and the phylogenetic interrelationships of teleosts have been controversial subjects ever since Greenwood, P. H., Rosen, D. E., Weitzman, S. H. and Myers, G. S. in 1966 presented a revision of teleost phylogeny. Different taxa (Amia, Lepisosteus, Amia + Lepisosteus, †Pycnodontiformes, †Dapedium, †Pachycormiformes, and others) have been proposed as the sister group of teleosts. Tremendous advances have occurred in our knowledge of Neopterygii, basal to teleosts, and in their major component the teleosts over the past 40 years. Many new key fossils have been studied, and many extant teleost clades have been traced back to the Jurassic in detailed studies by Gloria Arratia in 1987, 1996, and 2000. In addition to new fossils, a large number of new morphological and molecular characters have been incorporated in recent phylogenetic analyses, adding to our arsenal of approaches. This book gives a modern view of these approaches. It includes a compilation of synapomorphies of numerous teleostean taxa with a new proposal of their classification, a proposal that pycnodonts are the fossil sister group of teleosts, a phylogeny based on mitochondrial genome sequences, separate analyses of basal teleostean taxa (Osteoglossomorpha, Clupeiformes, Gonorynchiformes, Cypriniformes, Characiformes, Siluriformes, Salmoniformes, Esociformes) and the euteleostean Aulopiformes, karyological studies of Cyprinodontidae, and morphological analyses of the posterior part of the neurocranium. A biography of Gloria Arratia is also presented.