#xkcd No. 3204

Date: 2026-2-6

Title: Dinosaurs And Non-Dinosaurs

Alt text: Staplers are actually in Pseudosuchia, making them more closely related to crocodiles than to dinosaurs.

https://xkcd.com/3204/

    • sbird@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      5·
      9 hours ago

      *bony fish

      We are closer to your average fish (I don’t know any specific ones) with bones than they are with sharks (non-bony, cartilage!)

      • [object Object]@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        7 hours ago

        Herrings, salmon/trout, cod/haddock are all bony fish.

        The vast majority of extant fish are members of Osteichthyes (bony fish).

        In particular, ray-finned fish are bony fish:

        Actinopterygii, members of which are known as ray-finned fish or actinopterygians, is a class of bony fish that constitutes nearly 99% of the over 30,000 living species of fish. The vast majority of extant actinopterygian species are teleosts, and by species count they dominate the subphylum Vertebrata, comprising over 50% of all living vertebrates.

    • ZoDoneRightNow@kbin.earth
      13·
      18 hours ago

      Bony fish specifically but I’d argue that the common name for the clade bony fish is misleading and that bony fish aren’t a subtype of fish but rather a clade of animals descending from a subset of the non-clade category of things we call fish. Not all fish belong to a single clade we can call fish, bony fish descend from one of these unrelated things we collectively refer to as fish.

      • ZoDoneRightNow@kbin.earth
        8·
        18 hours ago

        Basically, I would say the term fish is more like our term for tree (representing a niche rather than clade) unless you would argue all vertebrates are fish. We are a member of the clade bony fish so we are bony fish but we do not fill the same niche as fish so aren’t a fish. So “Bony Fish” is a noun distinct from bony (adjective) fish (noun).