Paddlefish and sturgeon appeared in the fossil record 245 to 208 million years ago (Mya) near the end of the Triassic, making them among the most ancient of still-living ray-finned (actinopterygian) fish (Figure 8.1). Hence, these primitive bony fish are often referred to as fishy dinosaurs.
When the first flowering plants appeared on Earth and dinosaurs were the dominant large land animals, the ancestors of gars, bowfins, sturgeons, and paddlefish swam the waters of the ancient Tethys Sea. Bowfin and gars are sister groups to all bony fish.
\)Ĩ.1 The Primitive Bony Fish of North America Figure 8.1: Phylogenetic tree depicting the accepted relationships between sturgeons and paddlefish, gars, bowfins, and bony fish.
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