happened when fish first attempted to walk out of the water. The team of researchers raised juvenile Polypterus on land for nearly a year, with the aim of revealing how these 'terrestrialized' fish looked and moved differently. Species Polypterus ansorgii Boulenger, 1910 (Guinean bichir) Polypterus bichir Lacépède, 1803 (Nile bichir) P. b. lapradei Steindachner, 1869 (junior synonym) Polypterus congicus Boulenger, 1898 (Congo bichir) Polypterus delhezi Boulenger, 1899 (Barred bichir) Polypterus endlicherii Heckel, 1847 Polypterus mokelembembe Schliewen & Schäfer, 2006 (Mokèlé-mbèmbé bichir) Polypterus ornatipinnis Boulenger, 1902 (Ornate bichir) Polypterus palmas Ayres, 1850 Polypterus polli J. P. Gosse, 1988 (Poll's bichir) Polypterus retropinnis Vaillant, 1899 (West African bichir) Polypterus senegalus Cuvier, 1829 (Gray bichir) Polypterus teugelsi Britz, 2004 (Cross River bichir) Polypterus weeksii Boulenger, 1898 (Mottled bichir) References Sources Goodrich, E. S. (1908). On the systematic position of Polypterus. Report of the 77th Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (1907): 545-546. Quoted by Hall Hall, B. K. (2001) John Samuel Budgett (1872-1904): In Pursuit of Polypterus, BioScience, Vol. 51, No. 5 (May, 2001), pp. 399–407 Kerr, J.G. (1907), The development of Polypterus senegalus Cuv., Pages 195-290 in Kerr, J.G., (ed. 1907), The Work of John Samuel Budgett, Balfour Student of the University of Cambridge: Being a Collection of His Zoological Papers, together with a Biographical Sketch by A . E. Shipley, F.R.S., and Contributions by Richard Assheton, Edward J.Bles, Edward T. Browne, J. Herbert Budgett and J. Graham Kerr. Cambridge (UK): Cambridge University Press. Noack K, Zardoya R, Meyer A. 1996. The complete mitochondrial DNA sequence of the bichir (Polypterusor natipinnis), a basal ray-finned fish: Ancient establishment of the consensus vertebrate gene order. Genetics 144:1165-1180, cited by Hall Patterson C. (1982). Morphology and interrelationships of primitive actinopterygian fishes. American Zoologist 22: 241-260, cited by Hall. Romer, A S. (1946). The early evolution of fishes, Quarterly Review of Biology 21: 33-69, cited by Hall Polypteridae Taxa named by Bernard Germain de Lacépède Freshwater fish genera