The configuration of the skull, and the development and arrangement of its component parts, approaches so much the Teleosteous type that, perhaps, there are greater differences in skulls of truly Teleosteous fishes than between the skulls of Amia and many Physostomi. Externally the cranium is entirely ossified; and the remains of the cartilaginous primordial cranium (which, however, has no vacuity in its roof) can only be seen in a section, and are of much less extent than in many Physostomous fishes. The immovable intermaxillary, the double vomer, the plurality of ossifications representing the articulary, the double articulary cavity of the mandible for junction with the quadrate and symplectic bones, remind us still of similar conditions in the skull of Lepidosteus, but the mobility and formation of the maxillary, the arrangement of the gill-covers, the development of the opercles, the suspensorium, the palate, the insertion of a number of branchiostegals on the long middle hyoid piece, the composition of the branchial framework (with upper and lower pharyngeals), are as in the Teleosteous type. A gular plate replaces the urohyal.
The scapular arch is composed entirely of the membrane-bones found in the Teleostei, and the two sides are loosely united by ligament. The base to which the limb is attached is cartilaginous; short semi-ossified rods are arranged along its hinder margin and bear the pectoral rays.
The skeleton of the hind-limb agrees entirely with that of Lepidosteus.
[T. W. Bridge, The Cranial Osteology of Amia calva; in Journ. Anat. and Physiol. vol. xi.]
In the Teleosteous fishes the spinous column consists of completely ossified amphicœlous vertebræ; its termination is homocercal—that is, the caudal fin appears to be more or less symmetrical, the last vertebra occupying a central position in the base of the fin, and being coalesced with a flat osseous lamella, the hypural (Fig. [23], [70]), on the hind margin of which the fin-rays are fixed. The hypural is but a union of modified hæmapophyses which are directed backwards, and the actual termination of the notochord is bent upwards, and lies along the upper edge of the hypural, hidden below the last rudimentary neural elements. In some Teleosteans, as the Salmonidæ, the last vertebræ are conspicuously bent upwards: in fact, strictly speaking, this homocercal condition is but one of the various degrees of heterocercy, different from that of many Ganoids in this respect only, that the caudal fin itself has assumed a higher degree of symmetry.
The neural and hæmal arches generally coalesce with the centrum, but there are many exceptions, inasmuch as some portion of the arches of a species, or all of them, show the original division.
The vertebræ are generally united with one another by zygapophyses, and frequently similar additional articulations exist at the lower parts of the centra. Parapophyses and ribs are very general, but the latter are inserted on the centra and the base of the processes, and never on their extremities. The point of insertion of the rib, more especially on the anterior vertebræ, may be still higher—viz. at the base of the neural arch, as in Cotylis and allied genera, and even on the top of the neurapophysis, as in Batrachus.
There is a great amount of variation as regards the degree in which the primordial cranium persists; it is always more or less replaced by bone; frequently it disappears entirely, but in some fishes, like the Salmonidæ or Esocidæ, the cartilage persists to the same or even to a greater extent than in the Ganoidei holostei. Added to the bones preformed in cartilage are a great number of membrane-bones. The different kinds of these membrane-bones occur with greater or less constancy throughout this sub-class; they often coalesce with, and are no more separable from, the neighbouring or underlying cartilage-bones. All these bones have been topographically enumerated in Chapter IV.
Many attempts have been made to classify the bones of the Teleosteous skull, according to their supposed relation to each other, or with the view to demonstrate the unity of plan on which the skull has been built; but in all either the one or the other of the following two principles has been followed:—
A. The “vertebral doctrine” starts from the undeniable fact that the skull is originally composed of several segments, each of which is merely the modification of a vertebra. The component parts of such a cranial segment are considered to be homologous to those of a vertebra. Three, four, or five cranial vertebræ have been distinguished, all the various bones of the fully-developed and ossified skull being referred, without distinction as to their origin, to one or the other of those vertebral segments. The idea of the typical unity of the osseous framework of Vertebrates has been worked out with the greatest originality and knowledge of detail, by Owen, who demonstrates that the fish-skull is composed of four vertebræ.