The pectoral fins of Elasmobranchs vary very much in their mode of attachment. In some of the sharks, including the Notidanidae and _Scyllium_, all three basalia articulate with the pectoral girdle, while in others such as _Cestracion_ the meta-pterygium is excluded. In Rays the propterygium and the meta-pterygium are long and narrow and diverge much from one another; other basalia work their way in between the meso-pterygium and meta-pterygium, and come to articulate with the pectoral girdle. Sometimes they fuse and form a second meso-pterygium. The radiale are greatly elongated and are segmented.
In _Chimaera_ all three basalia are present, but the meso-pterygium is shifted and does not articulate with the pectoral girdle[49].
In _Acipenser_ and _Polyodon_ the pectoral fin is built on the same type as in Elasmobranchs, but becomes modified from the fact that the propterygium is replaced by dermal bone which forms a large =marginal ray=. Extra meso-pterygia are formed in the same way as in Rays.
In _Polypterus_ the pro-and meta-pterygia have ossified while the meso-pterygium remains chiefly cartilaginous; the fin-rays are also chiefly ossified.
In _Amia_, _Lepidosteus_, and certain Teleosteans like _Salmo_, not only the propterygium but the meso-pterygium is almost suppressed by the marginal ray.
In the great majority of Teleosteans a still further stage is reached, the endoskeletal elements, the basalia and radiale are almost entirely suppressed and the fin comes to consist entirely of ossified fin-rays of dermal origin.
In some Teleosteans--_Exocaetus_, a herring, and _Dactylopterus_, a gurnard--the pectoral fins are so enormously developed that by means of them the fish is able to fly through the air for considerable distances. The skeleton of these great fins is almost entirely composed of dermal bone.
The pelvic fin is almost always further removed from the archipterygial condition, and is in general more modified than is the pectoral. Thus in the Ichthyotomi, while the pectoral fins are archipterygia similar to those of _Ceratodus_, the pelvic fins consist of an axis bearing rays on the postaxial side only, and prolonged distally into a clasper. In Dipnoi however the pelvic fins are very similar to the pectoral. In Elasmobranchs the meso-pterygium is missing, the propterygium is small or absent, and the fin is mainly composed of the meta-pterygium (generally called basi-pterygium) and its radiale. The males in Elasmobranchii and Holocephali have the distal end of the meta-pterygium prolonged into a clasper.