Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Any of various fishes of the group Teleostei, having a protrusible upper jaw and including most of the ray-finned fishes.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • In ichthyology, osseous, as a fish; having a well-ossified skeleton, as ordinary fishes; of or pertaining to the Teleostei.
  • noun An osseous fish; any member of the Teleostei. See cuts on following page, and cuts under Esox, optic, palatoquadrate, parasphenoid, and pike.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Zoöl.) One of the Teleosti. Also used adjectively.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective of, or relating to the Teleostei - fish with bony skeletons
  • noun such a fish

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a bony fish of the subclass Teleostei

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[From New Latin Teleosteī, group name (Greek teleos, complete; see teleology + osteon, bone; see ost- in Indo-European roots) and from New Latin Teleostomī, group name (Greek teleos, complete + Greek stoma, mouth).]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Ancient Greek τέλεος (teleos, "complete") + ὀστέον (osteon, "bone").

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Examples

  • Similarly, lungs were a selective advantage to fish living in stagnant waters, enabling them to breathe air, long before the descendants of these fish walked on land; in modern teleost fishes the lung has lost its function as a breathing organ, and has been transformed into a hydrostatic organ, the swim bladder.

    A Mystery for the Ages 2005

  • The elephant shark sequence revealed twice as many CNEs as were identified by whole-genome comparisons between teleost fishes and human.

    Another unintelligent move - The Panda's Thumb 2007

  • Hyposomotic marine teleost fishes endemic to icy, freezing polar or subpolar waters face constant threat of freezing death.

    Evolutionary Scrap-heap Challenge: Antifreeze Fish Make Sense Out Of Junk DNA - The Panda's Thumb 2007

  • In the sea, whales, sharks, and teleost fishes of modern types rule in the stead of huge swimming reptiles.

    The Elements of Geology William Harmon Norton 1900

  • Its predominant life features are the culmination and the beginning of the decline of reptiles, amphibians, cephalopod mollusks, and cycads, and the advent of marsupial mammals, birds, teleost fishes, and angiospermous plants.

    The Elements of Geology William Harmon Norton 1900

  • Now, in the development of a teleost fish (Fig. 68), as has been shown by Alexander Agassiz, the tail-fin is first like Fig. 70; then becomes heterocercal, like Fig. 69; and, finally, becomes homocercal like Fig. 68.

    Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) An Exposition of the Darwinian Theory and a Discussion of Post-Darwinian Questions George John Romanes 1871

  • Peatman E, Liu ZJ (2007) Evolution of CC chemokines in teleost fish: a case study in gene duplication and implications for immune diversity.

    PLoS ONE Alerts: New Articles Hans-Christian Ingerslev et al. 2010

  • Purcell MK, Smith KD, Aderem A, Hood L, Winton JR, et al. (2006) Conservation of Toll-like receptor signaling pathways in teleost fish.

    PLoS ONE Alerts: New Articles Hans-Christian Ingerslev et al. 2010

  • Conversely, the scarce availability of antibodies in teleost research to date often hampers the opportunity for functional experiments.

    PLoS ONE Alerts: New Articles Hans-Christian Ingerslev et al. 2010

  • In the teleost lineage several genes including ERbeta (but not ERalpha) have undergone gene duplication generating two genes in many fish species including zebrafish.

    PLoS ONE Alerts: New Articles Gayathri Chandrasekar et al. 2010

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