Freshwater Fishes: 250 Million Years of Evolutionary History

Description

With more than 15,000 species, nearly a quarter of the total number of vertebrate species on Earth, freshwater fishes are extremely varied. They include the largest fish species, the beluga at over 7 meters long, and the smallest, the Paedocypris at just 8 millimeters, as well as the carnivorous, such as the piranha, and the calm, such as the Chinese algae eater. Certain species evolve rapidly, cichlids for example, while others transform very slowly, like lungfish. The fossils of these animals are very diverse in nature, sometimes just small scattered bones where sites correspond to ancient river beds or magnificent fossils of entire fish where there was once a lake. This book covers the history of these fishes over the last 250 million years by exploring the links between their biological evolution and the paleogeographic and environmental transformations of our planet, whether these be gradual or sudden. Content: Front matter,Copyright,Foreword,IntroductionEntitled to full text1 - Freshwater Environments and Fishes, Pages 1-14 2 - Assemblages of Freshwater Fishes in the Mesozoic, Pages 15-40 3 - Assemblages of Freshwater Fishes in the Cenozoic, Pages 41-51 4 - Evolutionary Histories of Freshwater Fishes, Pages 53-125 5 - Evolutionary Patterns in Freshwater Fishes, Pages 127-140 Conclusion, Pages 141-142 Bibliography, Pages 143-190 Index - Topics, Families and Genera, Pages 191-199