Osteichthyes

Bony fish; Temporal range: Late Silurian - Recent
	Atlantic herring
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Clade:	Teleostomi
Superclass:	Osteichthyes; Huxley, 1880

Osteichthyes are a taxonomic superclass of fish, also called bony fish, that includes the ray-finned fish (Actinopterygii) and lobe finned fish (Sarcopterygii). The split between these two classes occurred around 440 million years ago. The Osteichthyes are paraphyletic with land vertebrates. This is why some classification schemes put the tetrapods into the Osteichthyes. Osteichthyes are the most various group of vertebrates, consisting of over 29,000 species, making them the largest superclass of vertebrates in existence today.

Taxonomy

Osteichthyes has two classes. They are the Actinopterygii and Sarcopterygii.

Actinopterygii – these are the ray-finned fishes.
Sarcopterygii – these are the lobe-finned fishes. There are only a few sarcopterygians that are still alive today. Most of them have gone extinct.

Osteichthyes Media

Guiyu oneiros, the earliest known bony fish, lived during the Late Silurian, 425 million years ago. It has a combination of both ray-finned and lobe-finned features.
Crucian carp (Carassius carassius)
based on PD Image:Coelacanth.png
Coelacanthflipped
Chinle fish Arganodus cropped cropped
Salamandra salamandra (white background)
Planche N° 105 du livre "Le règne animal distribué d'après son organisation" par Georges Cuvier (Tome 8), seconde édition de 1828, représentant : Polypterus senegalus
Atlantic Sturgeon, Acipenser oxyrhynchus. Scans of artwork commissioned by the Fish and Wildlife Service in the 1970's. Original art is kept at NCTC museum.
Alligator gar fish (white background)
Amia calva (white background)