“Paradox Lost”: Skeletal Ontogeny of Indostomus paradoxus and Its Significance for the Phylogenetic Relationships of Indostomidae (Teleostei, Gasterosteiformes)

Abstract
How wilt thou reason with them, how refute Their idolisms, traditions, paradoxes? John Milton, Paradise Regained, 1671 On the Use of Ichthyology Utility will always be found to depend more on the degree of attention to any subject connected with science, than on the nature of the subject itself; yet it is a common remark that this, or that, is important or frivilous, according as we happen to be acquainted with it. When we find any branch of science regarded as useless, we may be assured that, contrary to ordinary expectation, it will prove the most productive field we can enter. Science, indeed, can only be useful where it has been cultivated, and its principles worked out; practical results will then follow in proportion to the pains taken to develop them. John McClelland (1839: 457) On the basis of an ontogenetic series of Indostomus paradoxus, we test characters that have been proposed for the phylogenetic placement of this enigmatic taxon. Contrary to previous authors, we found that the body...

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