Much new information on the movement ecology of fishes is present in this Special Issue Environmental Biology Fishes. Authors submitted manuscripts response to now-deceased Editor-in-Chief David Noakes’ call for papers under theme “fish movement: molecules, models, and migration.” In a little over year half, 30 were molecular biology, behavior, physiology, bony cartilaginous (and even jawless f...

The Osteichthyes, including bony fishes and tetrapods, is a highly speciose group of vertebrates, comprising more than 42,000 living species. The anatomy of osteichthyans has been the subject of numerous comparative studies, but most of these studies concern osteological structures; much less attention has been paid to muscles. The most detailed comparative analyses of osteichthyan pectoral mus...

Our recent paper examined how pelvic fins and their musculature form developmentally and how these mechanisms have evolved within the vertebrate lineage, a process fundamental to the tetrapod transition. The transition from the water onto the land is among one of the most well studied steps in the evolutionary history of vertebrates, yet the genetic basis of this evolutionary transition is litt...

The adult morphology of the tail varies greatly among extant fishes despite sharing both ontogenetic similarities and the functional need to propel the body through a fluid medium. Both sharks (Chondrichthyes) and ray-finned fishes (Actinopterygii) control caudal fin musculature independently of axial body myomere activity to modify the stiffness and shape of their tails. For example, sharks an...

Bone as structure and mineral reserve 405 ties of the bones become the site of haematopoietic tissue, and in the higher vertebrates bone is known to act as a storehouse of mineral salts. In its finer structure, too, bone shows a progressive evolutionary change, although here the account is far from complete. In the earliest vertebrates the bone is acellular. In the primitive bony fishes the bon...