Published online by Cambridge University Press: 31 December 2018
Air-breathing evolved in fishes during the Silurian, prior to the conquest of terrestrial environments, as the first air-breathing groups were still aquatic forms. Among fossil fishes and stem-tetrapods, the air-breathing behaviour was described based on anatomical structures and organs, such as spiracles, skeletal buccal pump components, cranial ribs, well-developed pleural ribs, integumentary dermal skeleton, choanae and calcified lungs. However, due to the rarity of soft tissue preservation in the fossil record, the presence of lungs is mostly described among fossil coelacanths, which present a pulmonary complex covered by ossified lung plates throughout its length. Here, we describe the main differences among fossil coelacanth lungs, review some of the accessory air-breathing structures in fossil fishes and stem-tetrapods and discuss the air-breathing evolution that enabled the rise and development of early vertebrates on the terrestrial environment.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.