∞ generated and posted on 2016.11.06 ∞
Lungfish, coelocanths, and other evolutionary forerunners of tetrapods.
The lobe-finned fish are members of class Sarcopterygii. Cladistically, so too are the tetrapods, as descendants of lobe-finned fish.
The lobe-finned fish differ particularly from the ray-finned fish, which are members of class Actinopterygii, though together the lobe-finned fish and ray-finned fish are found in the superclass Osteichthyes, i.e., the bony fish. Alternatively, Osteichthyes can be ranked at the level of class with Sarcopterygii and Actinopterygii both ranked instead at the level of subclass.
In any case, these are all fish – and therefore members of phylum Chordata as well as subphylum Vertebrata – but are not cartilaginous fish.
As noted, it is among the lobe-finned fish that the first tetrapods, the amphibians, originated.