Osteolepis

Osteolepis (from 'bone' and 'scale') is an extinct genus of lobe-finned fish from the Devonian period. It lived in Lake Orcadie of northern Scotland.

== Discovery and naming == The name Osteolepis was first used in 1829 by authors Sedgwick and Murchison, who assigned two species distinguished by the apparent sizes of their scales: O. macrolepidotus and O. microlepidotus. Their descriptions of both species are considered inadequate to describe a taxon, however, and a detailed description of the genus was not published until 1835 when naturalist Louis Agassiz treated the genus in more detail. Agassiz had previously intended to use the genus name Pleiopterus for the same fossils, but opted instead to use the preexisting genus and species names. In addition to the two species first suggested by Sedgwick and Murchison, Agassiz also named the new species O. arenatus in the same publication. In accordance with Agassiz' description, Osteolepis macrolepidotus is now the type species of the genus.