Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2025 May;21(5):20250038.
doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2025.0038. Epub 2025 May 21.

Heterochrony leads to evolutionary novelty: the catfish pectoral-fin spine (Teleostei: Siluriformes)

Kole M Kubicek  1 , Ralf Britz  2 , Kevin W Conway  3
Affiliations

Heterochrony leads to evolutionary novelty: the catfish pectoral-fin spine (Teleostei: Siluriformes)

Kole M Kubicek et al. Biol Lett. 2025 May.

Abstract

Studies of sequence heterochrony have revealed changes in developmental timing during skeletogenesis, which are widespread among major groups of tetrapods and may be associated with major changes in morphology, life history and function. Despite the greater potential for heterochronic shifts to occur in actinopterygian fishes due to their more complex and morphologically diverse skeletons, similar studies within this major vertebrate group are rare. In this study, we provide an example of an association between heterochrony and the appearance of an evolutionary novelty: the pectoral-fin spine of catfishes, the highly modified anteriormost pectoral-fin ray. Using both Sequence ANOVA and PGi analyses, we show that the developmental onset of the pectoral-fin spine of catfishes is greatly pre-displaced in the sequence of ossification compared to the anteriormost pectoral-fin ray of non-siluriform otophysans. The catfish pectoral-fin spine represents a case of peramorphosis linked with a morphological and functional innovation of a highly diverse evolutionary lineage of actinopterygian fishes.

Keywords: Otophysi; ontogeny; osteology; peramorphosis; skeletogenesis.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

We declare we have no competing interests.

References

    1. Haeckel E. 1874. Die Gastraea-Theorie, die phylogenetische classification des Thierreichs und die Homologie der Keimblätter. J. Zeitschr. Naturwiss. 9, 402–508.
    1. Gould SJ. 1977. Ontogeny and phylogeny. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
    1. de Beer GR. 1930. Embryology and evolution. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press.
    1. Smith KK. 2001. Heterochrony revisited: the evolution of developmental sequences. Biol. J. Linn. Soc. 73, 169–186. (10.1111/j.1095-8312.2001.tb01355.x) - DOI
    1. Weisbecker V, Mitgutsch C. 2010. A large-scale survey of heterochrony in anuran cranial ossification patterns. J. Zool. Syst. Evol. Res. 48, 332–347. (10.1111/j.1439-0469.2010.00570.x) - DOI

LinkOut - more resources