Basal teleosts and the question of elopomorph monophyly. Morphological and molecular approaches

The methodology used by previous authors to resolve the relationships of the elopomorphan taxa is criticized. The morphological characters that have been proposed to support the monophyly of the Elopomorpha are reviewed and it is shown that most of them are weak. A new hypothesis of relationships is proposed on the basis of nucleotidic sequences of ribosomal RNA 18S, 16S and 12S. In order to really test all the possible relationships, the monophyly of the Elopomorpha was not considered a priori. The tree was rooted on Amia calva and Lepisosteus osseus and the ingroup taxa sampling was subsequently increased. The obtained topology shows that the Elopomorpha is a non-monophyletic taxon. Elopiforms, anguilliforms, albuliforms and notacanthiforms are considered here as four monophyletic, incertae sedis taxa among basal teleosts.