The Development of the Weberian Ossicles in Pantosteus Plebius

• Main Author: Butler, John Lawrence
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: UNM Digital Repository 1959
• Subjects: Biology; Minnows; The Minnows
• Online Access: https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/biol_etds/132; https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1132&context=biol_etds

The Weberian apparatus, which was first described by Weber in 1820, is characteristic of the largest order of freshwater fishes, the Ostariophysi, a group that includes, forty-two families, among which are the minnows, suckers, siluroids, and characids. The apparatus of the family Catostomidae, the suckers, is one of the more complex because the anterior vertebrae are more highly modified than in most other groups. Although the suckers have a more complex form of apparatus, they have received comparatively little study, and this is the first developmental investigation of the Weberian ossicles of any catostomid.