Of the approximately 45,000 species of vertebrates alive today more than half (about 27,000 species) are ray-finned fishes. Ray-finned fishes, or actinopterygians, include fishes with familiar shapes like goldfish, tuna, and salmon, as well as some very oddly shaped fishes like seahorses, flounder, and pufferfish. Not only do ray-finned fishes exhibit remarkable morphological diversity, they are also found in diverse environments, ranging from small freshwater streams to the deep sea. My work is focused on understanding the history of vertebrate evolution through studying fossils of early ray-finned fishes (lower actinopterygians) from the Paleozoic. These fish have the unfortunate distinction of being among the most understudied vertebrates, but that means there are abundant opportunities to describe new species! In this talk I will discuss my work on lower actinopterygian fishes, how new species are described, and why detailed taxonomic descriptions are important not only for our understanding of the diversity of these fossil fishes but also our understanding of today’s ray-finned fishes.
This is a FREE event, but pre-registration is required.
Bitly link: https://bit.ly/3XNdy48
About the Speaker: Dr. Kathryn Mickle is the Associate Program Director and Pre-Medical Studies Associate Professor of Biology in the Department of Biological and Chemical Sciences at Thomas Jefferson University. Her research focuses on a group of fossil lower actinopterygian fishes commonly referred to as palaeoniscoids that are more than 300-million years old.
