Families: 1 - Latimeriidae (only two living species are known today, both from the genus Latimeria)
Anatomy: large, plump body; many lobed fins; tapetum lucidum in eyes; two nostrils and four other external openings
Diet: cuttlefish, squid, snipe eels, small sharks, and other fish
Habitat: reef and volcanic slope habitats between 90 to 200 m (300 to 660 ft) deep, in the western Indian Ocean around the Comoro Islands, Madagascar, and Mozambique (L. chalumnae) and in the waters of north Sulawesi, Papua, Southwest Papua, and North Maluku (L. menadoensis)
Evolved in: Middle Triassic
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As Sarcopterygiians (“lobe-finned fish”), coelacanths are more closely related to lungfish and tetrapods (amphibians, reptiles, and mammals), than to Actinopterygiians (“ray-finned fishes”) and Chondrichthyes (“cartilaginous fishes”).
Coelacanths get their name from Coelacanthus, a genus of Permian coelacanths and the first coelacanths to be described. Over 100 fossil species are known, and all of them were believed to have gone extinct in the Cretaceous. On December 23, 1938, the first Latimeria specimen was discovered among the catch of a South African fisherman, making coelacanths a “lazarus taxon.” While considered a “living fossil”, coelacanth body shapes were much more diverse in the Triassic, and, unlike other “living fossils”, the genus Latimeria itself is not known from fossils, showing that it had to have gone through some changes to adapt to the modern day.
Coelacanths can grow to more than 2 m (6.6 ft) long and weigh around 90 kg (200 lb).
Coelacanths are ovoviviparous, with the female retaining the fertilized eggs within her body while the embryos develop over a gestation period of five years. The female will give live birth to around 5-26 young. Young coelacanths resemble the adult, but carry an external yolk sac below their pelvic fins, and have larger eyes relative to body size.
Individual coelacanths may live as long as 80 to 100 years.
Coelacanths seem to get along with other coelacanths, though they recoil from physical touch. Scientists think that they recognize each other via electric communication.
Coelacanths can orient their body in almost any direction in the water. They have been seen doing headstands as well as swimming belly up.
Coelacanths are able to slow their metabolisms at will, sinking into less-inhabited depths and going into a sort of “hibernation mode” to conserve energy.
Scientific research suggests the coelacanth must stay in cold, well-oxygenated water or else its blood cannot absorb enough oxygen. The fish seems to be very well adapted to its environment, which is seen as one of the reasons why it has the slowest evolving genome of all known vertebrates.
Allenypterus montanus was an unusual early coelacanth that lived during the late Carboniferous, around 324 million years ago, in a tropical bay covering what is now central Montana, USA.
Up to about 15cm long (~6"), its tapering tadpole-like body plan somewhat resembled that of modern knifefishes and featherbacks, with the top part of its tail fin highly elongated into a ribbon-like shape and the rest of its tail fins being vestigial. The distinctive humped shape of its back was also much more pronounced in larger, more mature individuals.
It was probably a fairly slow swimmer, and preserved gut contents suggest it mainly ate small soft-bodied prey.
Its closest known relative seems to have been the eel-like Holopterygius – but since around 60 million years and different continents separated them both, this suggests the existence of a whole ghost lineage of other tapering coelacanths yet to be discovered.
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References:
Friedman, Matt, and Michael I. Coates. "A newly recognized fossil coelacanth highlights the early morphological diversification of the clade." Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 273.1583 (2006): 245-250. https://doi.org/10.1098%2Frspb.2005.3316
Lund, Richard, and Wendy Lund. "New genera and species of coelacanths from the Bear Gulch Limestone (Lower Carboniferous) of Montana (USA)." Geobios 17.2 (1984): 237-244. https://www.academia.edu/download/66985268/s0016-6995_2884_2980145-x20210504-8876-dzniic.pdf
Lund, Wendy L., Richard Lund, and G. Klein. "Coelacanth feeding mechanisms and ecology of the Bear Gulch coelacanths." Compte Rendus du Neuvième Congrès International sur la Stratigraphie et la Géologie du Carbonifère 5 (1985): 492-500. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/285577607_Coelacanth_Feeding_Mechanisms_and_Ecolqgy_of_the_Bear_Gulch_Coelacanths
Toriño, Pablo, Matías Soto, and Daniel Perea. "A comprehensive phylogenetic analysis of coelacanth fishes (Sarcopterygii, Actinistia) with comments on the composition of the Mawsoniidae and Latimeriidae: Evaluating old and new methodological challenges and constraints." Historical Biology 33.12 (2021): 3423-3443. https://doi.org/10.1080/08912963.2020.1867982
Thank you @narwhalsdisguised for your donation to Mahmoud's fundraiser! Here are some fun facts about coelacanths:
Like tortoises, coelacanths are extremely long lived. Individuals don't reach sexual maturity until they're around 50, and most can live up to 100!
In fact, coelacanths take their time with just about everything- including pregnancy. Females gestate their young for 5 years, and can carry anywhere from 8 to 26 offspring.
Coelacanths are ovoviviparous, meaning they retain fertilized eggs inside their bodies until they hatch, and then give birth to live young!
Thanks to their three pairs of fins, which are extremely flexible, they can swim in almost any direction- including doing headstands and swimming upside down!
Coelacanths were thought to have gone extinct at the same time as the dinosaurs, around 65 million years ago
In 1938, they were re-discovered by a woman named Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer, who was the curator of the East London Museum in South Africa. Bonus fun fact: she finished writing the paper detailing the species' rediscovery only 4 days before giving birth to her son!
Although coelacanths can grow to be 1.8 m (5.9 ft) long, their brains only take up 2% of their cranial cavity!
Their large size also means that coelacanths have the largest eggs of any fish species, coming in at 9 centimeters (3.5 inches) in diameter and weighing over 325 g (0. 7lbs)!
Most fish have swim bladders filled with air, which helps them to float or sink as needed, but the swim bladders of coelacanths are filled with fat!
Two other characteristics that give the coelacanth the nickname 'living fossil' are the presence of a "rostral organ" in the snout that is part of the electrosensory system, and an intracranial joint or "hinge" in the skull that allows the top portion of the skull to swing upwards and the mouth to open much wider than other fish; neither feature is found in any other living vertebrate!
(Image: An African coelacanth (Latimeria chalumnae) by Peter Scoones)
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Coelacanths are represented today by just two surviving species, one in East Africa and one in Indonesia, both very similar in appearance and ecology to each other.
For a long time their lineage was thought to be all "living fossils", retaining the same basic body plan for the last 400 million years – but more recent discoveries have revealed that these fish were actually much more diverse over the course of their evolutionary history.
Holopterygius nudus was a fairly early member of the group, living during the mid-Devonian about 385 million years ago. The only known fossil specimen was discovered in Germany in the 1970s, but it was originally thought to be a different type of fish entirely and wasn't identified as being a coelacanth until over 30 years later.
And compared to its living relatives it was tiny, just 7cm long (2.75"), with a distinctive tapering eel-like tail. Its convergent close resemblance to modern cusk-eels suggest it may have occupied a similar ecological niche, living near the sea floor and hiding in tight spaces like crevices and burrows.
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