Lungfish are freshwater vertebrates belonging to the class Dipnoi. Lungfish are best known for retaining ancestral characteristics within the Osteichthyes, including the ability to breathe air, and ancestral structures within Sarcopterygii, including the presence of lobed fins with a well-developed internal skeleton. Lungfish represent the closest living relatives of the tetrapods. The mouths of lungfish typically bear tooth plates, which are used to crush hard shelled organisms.
Sarcopterygii — sometimes considered synonymous with Crossopterygii — is a clade of vertebrate animals which includes a group of bony fish commonly referred to as lobe-finned fish. These vertebrates are characterised by prominent muscular limb buds (lobes) within their fins, which are supported by articulated appendicular skeletons. This is in contrast to the other clade of bony fish, the Actinopterygii, which have only skin-covered bony spines supporting the fins.
Placoderms are vertebrate animals of the class Placodermi, an extinct group of prehistoric fish known from Paleozoic fossils during the Silurian and the Devonian periods. While their endoskeletons are mainly cartilaginous, their head and thorax were covered by articulated armoured plates, and the rest of the body was scaled or naked depending on the species.
Ctenurella is an extinct genus of ptyctodont placoderm from the Late Devonian of Germany. The first fossils were found in the Strunde valley in the Paffrather Kalkmulde.
Dipnorhynchus is an extinct genus of marine lungfish from the middle Devonian period (Emsian) of Australia.
The Gogo Formation in the Kimberley region of Western Australia is a Lagerstätte that exhibits exceptional preservation of a Devonian reef community. The formation is named after Gogo Station, a cattle station where outcrops appear and fossils are often collected from, as is nearby Fossil Downs Station.
John Albert Long is an Australian paleontologist who is currently Strategic Professor in Palaeontology at Flinders University in Adelaide, South Australia. He was previously the Vice President of Research and Collections at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. He is also an author of popular science books. His main area of research is on the fossil fish of the Late Devonian Gogo Formation from northern Western Australia. It has yielded many important insights into fish evolution, such as Gogonasus and Materpiscis, the later specimen being crucial to our understanding of the origins of vertebrate reproduction.
Diplocercides is an extinct genus of marine coelacanth which lived during the Late Devonian period.
Holonema is an extinct genus of relatively large, barrel-shaped arthrodire placoderms that were found in oceans throughout the world from the Mid to Late Devonian, when the last species perished in the Frasnian-Fammian extinction event. Most species of the genus are known from fragments of their armor, but the Gogo Reef species, H. westolli, is known from whole, articulated specimens.
Chirodipterus is an extinct genus of marine lungfish which lived during the Devonian period. Fossils have been found worldwide, including Germany, China, eastern & western Australia, and the United States (Michigan). However, it has been suggested that the genus as currently defined is polyphyletic, in which case only the German type species would belong to the genus.
Gogodipterus is an extinct genus of prehistoric marine lungfish in the family Chirodipteridae. It contains a single species, G. paddyensis, known from the Late Devonian Gogo Formation of Western Australia. It was formerly placed in Chirodipterus.
Ganopristodus is an extinct genus of prehistoric sarcopterygian or lobe-finned fish from the Devonian.
Eoctenodus is an extinct genus of prehistoric sarcopterygian or lobe-finned fish.
Devonosteus is an extinct genus of prehistoric marine lobe-finned fish known from the Late Devonian. It contains a single species, D. proteus from the late Frasnian of Wildungen, Germany. It has sometimes been considered a lungfish of the family Holodontidae, but this remains uncertain as the original specimen may be lost. Alternatively, it may be a tristichopterid, a type of basal tetrapodomorph.
Iowadipterus is an extinct genus of prehistoric sarcopterygian or lobe-finned fish.
Mioceratodus is an extinct genus of lungfish in the family Neoceratodontidae, which also contains the extant Queensland lungfish. It is known only from Oligocene and Miocene-aged sediments in Australia, although phylogenetic evidence supports it having first diverged from its closest relative, Neoceratodus, during the Late Jurassic or Early Cretaceous period.
Westollrhynchus is an extinct genus of prehistoric sarcopterygians or lobe-finned fish containing only one recognized species, Westrollrhynchus lehmanni.
Sorbitorhynchus is an extinct genus of prehistoric sarcopterygians, or lobe-finned fish. Fossils of this genus of marine lungfish have been found in Guangxi, China. The only described species in this genus is Sorbitorhynchus deleaskitus, but the holotype for this species may show some unusual malformations and thus not be useful for taxonomic or phylogenetic analysis.
Xeradipterus is an extinct genus of lungfish which existed in Australia during the Frasnian period. Of moderate size, it is believed to be a primitive member of the family Holodontidae characterized by its powerful crushing dentition with thick heels on the lower jaw tooth plates. The type and only specimen was found in the Gogo Formation by Lindsay Hatcher on an expedition to Gogo led by John A. Long on behalf of Museum Victoria in 2005.
Laccognathus embryi is an extinct species of porolepiform lobe-finned fish recovered from Ellesmere Island, Canada. It existed during the Frasnian age of the Late Devonian epoch.
