Category:Elpistostegalians

Articles relating to the Elpistostegalia, an order of prehistoric lobe-finned fishes which lived during the Late Devonian period (about 385 to 374 million years ago).^[1] They represent the advanced tetrapodomorph stock, the fishes more closely related to tetrapods than the osteolepiform fishes. The earliest elpistostegalians, combining fishlike and tetrapod-like characters, are sometimes called fishapods, a phrase coined for the advanced elpistostegalian Tiktaalik. Through a strict cladistic view, the order includes the terrestrial tetrapods.