November Issue of Developmental Dynamics is Out

Want to read about North African catfish’s pectoral fins, North American killfish and platyfish? Then be sure to check out the November issue of AAA’s Developmental Dynamics. This month’s cover story is on the development of the North African catfish, Clarias gariepinus, pectoral fin and how it differs from the stereotypical teleost pattern. In the research article, “Direct development of the catfish pectoral fin: An alternative pectoral fin pattern of teleosts,” researchers from Russia’s A.N. Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution of Russian Academy of Sciences write, “In the absence of the larval endoskeletal disk and TH control, the catfish’s proximal radials arise in a manner somewhat similar to the metapterygial radials in basal actinopterygians and humerus in sarcopterygians. Thus, the catfish fin pattern seems homoplastic, arising by convergence with, or reversion to the ancestral developmental mechanisms.”