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Definition
Movement used by sharks, rays, skates, and chimaeras to traverse their environment.
The class Chondrichthyes is comprised of sharks, rays, skates, and chimeras. They are among the oldest jawed vertebrate fish (de Bellard 2016). Chondrichthyans are classified as cartilaginous fish because they lack boney structures and instead contain a partially calcified cartilaginous skeletal structure. Historically over 1,200 species have been identified globally, dating as far back as 400–450 million years. The Chondrichthyes class is further divided into two subclasses: Elasmobranchii (sharks, rays, skates, and sawfish) and Holocephali (chimaeras, or ghost sharks). The Elasmobranchii are further subdivided into Selachii, or sharks, and Batoidea, including skates and rays (Crooks 2019) (Fig. 1). Chondrichthyes have adapted to a variety of water systems globally, including marine and freshwater, and their feeding behavior...
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Wilson, T.J., Piché, A., Ali, M., Granatosky, M.C. (2022). Chondrichthyes Locomotion. In: Vonk, J., Shackelford, T.K. (eds) Encyclopedia of Animal Cognition and Behavior. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-55065-7_1013
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