Are plecos related to sharks?

[Retuks]

every time i watch them when they're in panic or just swimming to new areas, they start to resemble sharks more and more.

all of the features are almost the same too. the gills, the skin, mouth location, FISH location (yes, sharks are bottom feeders), and all fins aside from some plecos having 4 instead of 2 like sharks on the sides. one of my plecos REALLY looks like a shark because its eyes are pushed in; giving it a mad-shark appearance.

is any of this valid? aside from their obvious natural adaptations they took over time their pretty close right?

 

[I<3fish]

Well, they are both fish.

 

[HarlanAshmore]

no they arent related

 

[Retuks]

your both looking too shallowly at the facts though. yea their both fish. same fact from us and monkeys of humanoid forms...some can say "oh ****... that thing has a tail. no way im related to that" but that would be really over-surface to say so. they have skin similar to shark skin, their mouths are placed like sharks (of course its a sucker instead cause nature can adapt and morph things into virtualy ANYTHING over time), their fins are all correct, the fact that they need to glide and push in order to move unlike regular fish for lack of an internal ballast to keep them centrally afloat while doing nothing, so they sink like sharks if they dont move.

i think people totally dismiss the possibility of shark-relationship because they hang vertically and don't swim around all the time, but then you gotta think they only do that because their holding on with their mouth and therefore don't need to move around.

also their retractable fins make them different but that difference is so insignificant, imean look at "true shark" variants and how far they vary from each other! you got things like the sawfish (shark/ray) and those bearded guys. not to mention basking sharks to great whites to wobbegongs to whale sharks.

 

[fishlover88]

They pretty much have it right. Yes at one point they all evolved from a distinct relative but over the course of millions of years Sharks and similar fishes form Chondrichthyes which includes: sharks and rays. and then you have Osteichthyes which are all bony fish. And as far as i can tell without doing serious research into it, they havent had a close relative in over 500 million years.

 

[fishlover88]

i found this. I hope it helps.

 

[Retuks]

so do i just disregard the fact that plecos have the same skin and all other traits that link up more than any other fish???

even aquarium "sharks" are way farther from sharks than plecos are. 1) they have scales and film, 2) their eyes, 3) their mouth, 4) their gills.

plecos match these pretty evenly. bala sharks dont.

 

[WyldFya]

your both looking too shallowly at the facts though. yea their both fish. same fact from us and monkeys of humanoid forms...some can say "oh ****... that thing has a tail. no way im related to that" but that would be really over-surface to say so. they have skin similar to shark skin, their mouths are placed like sharks (of course its a sucker instead cause nature can adapt and morph things into virtualy ANYTHING over time), their fins are all correct, the fact that they need to glide and push in order to move unlike regular fish for lack of an internal ballast to keep them centrally afloat while doing nothing, so they sink like sharks if they dont move.

i think people totally dismiss the possibility of shark-relationship because they hang vertically and don't swim around all the time, but then you gotta think they only do that because their holding on with their mouth and therefore don't need to move around.

also their retractable fins make them different but that difference is so insignificant, imean look at "true shark" variants and how far they vary from each other! you got things like the sawfish (shark/ray) and those bearded guys. not to mention basking sharks to great whites to wobbegongs to whale sharks.

This relationship is like comparing Homo sapien sapien to a kangaroo... yes we both walk upright, but no we are not related.