Figure 2. – A in Reevaluation of the Perciformes from the Late Cretaceous Marília Formation of Brazil and its confirmation as a Siluriformes

Figure 2. – A: Cross section of the dorsal ray showing the curl aspect of its perphery and the median canal (mc). B: Detail of the left basal side of the cross section showing several radial vascular canals (arrows). The asterisk points to an artefactual crack. C: Detail of the section showing the pseudolamellar bony tissue and the osteocytes especially in the upper left corner. D: Detail of the star-shaped osteocytes with their network of osteocytic canalicles. E: Detail of the ramified canalicles (arrows) in the bony matrix. Scale bars: A = 200 μm; B, C = 50 μm; D = 20 μm; E = 10 μm. In the original description of Gayet and Brito (1989), Perciformes was used in a large sense, a group considered as paraphyletic among the Percomorpha. Currently the Perciformes are defined as the clade formed by Percidae, Serranidae, Notothenioidei, Gasterosteidae, and the Scorpaeniformes (Betancur et al., 2017).