Teleocephala is a supercohort of

vertebrate Vertebrates () are animals with a vertebral column (backbone or spine), and a cranium, or skull. The vertebral column surrounds and protects the spinal cord, while the cranium protects the brain. The vertebrates make up the subphylum Vertebra ...

s, it is the grouping which contains the "

crown group In phylogenetics, the crown group or crown assemblage is a collection of species composed of the living representatives of the collection, the most recent common ancestor of the collection, and all descendants of the most recent common ancestor ...

" of the

Teleost Teleostei (; Ancient Greek, Greek ''teleios'' "complete" + ''osteon'' "bone"), members of which are known as teleosts (), is, by far, the largest group of ray-finned fishes (class Actinopterygii), with 96% of all neontology, extant species of f ...

ei, the

bony fish Osteichthyes ( ; ), also known as osteichthyans or commonly referred to as the bony fish, is a Biodiversity, diverse clade of vertebrate animals that have endoskeletons primarily composed of bone tissue. They can be contrasted with the Chondricht ...

es. The name was coined by Mario de Pinna in his 1996 book ''Interrelationships of Fishes'' and the

clade In biology, a clade (), also known as a Monophyly, monophyletic group or natural group, is a group of organisms that is composed of a common ancestor and all of its descendants. Clades are the fundamental unit of cladistics, a modern approach t ...

was given the rank of supercohort by Edward O. Wiley and G. David Johnson in 2010. Some authorities treat Teleocephala and

Teleosteomorpha Teleosteomorpha is an infraclass of ray-finned fishes containing all teleost fish and their closest extinct relatives. Also in this group are two diverse Mesozoic fish orders, the Aspidorhynchiformes and the Pachycormiformes. Several other non- ...

synonymous A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means precisely or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are a ...

, however, this is only applicable when treating

extant Extant or Least-concern species, least concern is the opposite of the word extinct. It may refer to: * Extant hereditary titles * Extant literature, surviving literature, such as ''Beowulf'', the oldest extant manuscript written in English * Exta ...

taxa In biology, a taxon (back-formation from ''taxonomy''; : taxa) is a group of one or more populations of an organism or organisms seen by taxonomists to form a unit. Although neither is required, a taxon is usually known by a particular name and ...

and that the treatment of these taxa in the 5th edition of ''

Fishes of the World ''Fishes of the World'' is a standard reference for the systematics of fishes. It was first written in 1976 by the American ichthyologist Joseph S. Nelson (1937–2011). Now in its fifth edition (2016), the work is a comprehensive overview of t ...

'' is somewhat confusing as de Pinna's original Teleocephala is actually a combination of three taxonomical concepts.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q2401823 Ray-finned fish taxa Taxa described in 1996