Rhipidistia

Rhipidistia Temporal range: Lower Devonian to Recent
Ectosteorhachis
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Sarcopterygii
(unranked):	Rhipidistia

The Rhipidistia are lobe-finned fish, and include the ancestors of the tetrapods. The Rhipidistia are a subgroup of Sarcopterygii which includes the lungfish (Dipnoi) and the tetrapodomorphs.

As cladistic understanding of the vertebrates has improved over the last few decades a monophyletic Rhipidistia is now understood to include the ancestor of the whole Tetrapoda.

Taxonomy

Rhipidistia

• Dipnomorpha
  • †Porolepiformes
    • †Powichthys
  • Dipnoi
• Tetrapodomorpha
  • †Rhizodontiformes
  • Osteolepidida
    • Osteolepiformes
      • †Tristichopteridae
      • Elpistostegalia
        • †Panderichthys
        • Tetrapoda

References

• palaeos.com page Archived 2005-08-28 at the Wayback Machine
• Taxonomicon page