Coelacanth facts for kids
Quick facts for kids CoelacanthsTemporal range: Devonian – Recent
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| Latimeria chalumnae, Natural History Museum, Vienna (170 cm; 60 kg). Caught 18 October 1974, off Grand Comoro, Comoro Islands. 11°48′40.7″S 43°16′3.3″E / 11.811306°S 43.267583°E. |
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Coelacanthimorpha
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Coelacanthiformes
Berg, 1937
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A coelacanth is a type of fish in the Sarcopterygii, the lobe-finned fishes. They are a sister group to those fish which evolved into tetrapods. Their fossil record goes back 400 million years, before any land vertebrates had evolved.
Coelacanths were thought to have been extinct for 80 million years, but in fact two species survived, living in the Indian Ocean. The first to be discovered was caught alive off the east African coast in 1938.
Characteristics
The coelacanths are the closest link between fish and the first amphibians which made the transition from sea to land in the Devonian period (408–362 million years ago). Whereas the fishapods lived near the shore in muddy water, the coelacanths lived in open water. The modern species are predators live in the deep ocean.
Latimeria
Latimeria is the only living genus of the otherwise fossil coelacanth fish. It is probably the best-known Lazarus taxon. That such a creature could have been unrecorded for so long is rare, but perhaps the cold depths of the West Indian ocean (in which the Coelacanth lives), and the few predators it has, may have helped the species survive. Its disgusting taste means that fishermen did not deliberately try to catch it, that is, before scientists started offering rewards.
The population living off Tanzania is threatened by Japanese trawlers, but the fish is not edible. They are simply caught in trawls by accident.
Discovery
Latimeria was first discovered in 1938 by Marjorie Courtenay Latimer, the curator of a small museum in the South African port town of East London, as she was visiting a fisherman who would let her search through his boat's catch for interesting specimens. The second species was found off the Comoros islands in the Indonesian archipelago in 1952. The largest specimen was about 1.8 metres (~6 ft).
Images for kids
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Fossil of Coelacanthus granulatus, the first described coelacanth, named by Louis Agassiz in 1839
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Reconstruction of West Indian Ocean coelacanth
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Preserved Latimeria menadoensis, Tokyo Sea Life Park, Japan
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West Indian Ocean coelacanth caught on 21 January 1965, near Mutsamudu (Anjouan, Comoro Islands)
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Pectoral fin of a West Indian Ocean coelacanth
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†Holophagus penicillatus (Undina penicillata) Münster 1834 from the Jurassic of Painten, Germany
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Size of freshwater coelacanth Mawsonia compared to a human
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Geographical distribution of coelacanth.
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Latimeria chalumnae model in the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, showing the coloration in life.
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Latimeria chalumnae embryo with its yolk sac from the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle
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Latimeria chalumnae egg
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Coelacanth
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Coelacanth at Abdallah Al Salem Cultural Center in Kuwait
See also
In Spanish: Celacanto para niños
