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by bustadjustme 2344 days ago
.... whales certainly aren't bony fish. They're in class Mammalia, which is not within the superclass Osteichthyes. I.e. they're mammals, not fish.
1 comments

Mammals are tetrapods, which are indeed under Osteichthyes (unless you consider Ostreichtyes to be paraphyletic).

If you look at the cladogram on the wikipedia page I linked, you see a picture of a salamander near the top representing the category Tetrapodomorpha. We (and whales) are also on that branch. Sharks are outside of that whole cladogram, as they are cartilaginous fish. ( * )

In other words, any clade which includes all bony fish also includes mammals.

[*] which means that the most recent common ancestor of sharks and goldfish lived longer ago than the most recent common ancestor of whales and goldfish