Data from: Limits and relationships of Paracanthopterygii: a molecular framework for evaluating past morphological hypotheses

Gadiforms and percopsiforms have historically been treated as prototypical
or core paracanthopterygians. As such, they are the keys to unlocking the
evolutionary history and limits of a revised Paracanthopterygii;
therefore, we address the taxonomic compositions of gadiforms and
percopsiforms and how they are related to each other and other putative
basal acanthomorphs. We address these questions by first constructing a
phylogenetic hypothesis based on multiple molecular sequences. Both
maximum likelihood and parsimony criteria strongly support a
Paracanthopterygii comprised of Percopsiformes + [Zeiformes + (Gadiformes
+ Stylephorus)]. Polymixiids are sister to this clade. Polymixiids +
paracanthopterygians are in turn sister to the acanthopterygians
(batrachoidiforms, beryciforms, lophiiforms, ophidioids, percomorphs) in
the parsimony analysis but sister to Acanthopterygii + Lampriformes (minus
Stylephorus) in the likelihood analysis. A review of published
morphological characters, putatively pertinent to paracanthopterygian
systematics were evaluated by the direct examination of specimens. Results
find high congruence between the molecular tree and character-state
distributions for many of these internal relationships. New
interpretations of homologies of published characters are proposed based
on topological and phylogenetic data.