Abstract Fuchsone (4-diphenylmethylene-2,5-cyclohexadien-l-one) (1) eliminates CO upon gasphase pyrolysis. The resulting biradical (2) either formes by double ring closure and dehydrogenation benzo[c]phenanthrene (6) or recombines to 6,6-diphenylfulvene (3) which gives after dehydrogenative ring closure and rearrangement 1-phenylacenaphthylene (11)