Coelacanth
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Coelacanths are an ancient group of lobe-finned fish in the class Actinistia. As sarcopterygians, they are more closely related to lungfish and tetrapods than to ray-finned fish. There is only a singl
Axelrodichthys araripensis Naturmuseum Senckenberg DSC02202
Fossil of Coelacanthus granulatus, the first described coelacanth, named by Louis Agassiz in 1839
Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer with the type specimen of Latimeria chalumnae
Pectoral fin of a West Indian Ocean coelacanth
Living fossil
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A living fossil is a term for an extant taxon that phenotypically resembles related species known only from the fossil record, though scientifically the term is deprecated and avoided. To be considere
Coelacanth
…seas of Eastern Indonesia, from Manado to Papua. The Coelacanth (or more accurately, the extant genus Latimeria) is often considered an example of a "living fossil" in popular science because it was considered the sole remaining member of a taxon otherwise known only from fossils (a biological relict), evolving a…
The coelacanths were thought to have gone extinct 66 million years ago, until a living specimen belonging to the order was discovered in 1938.
170 million-year-old fossil Ginkgo leaves
Living Ginkgo biloba plant
Elephant shrews resemble the extinct Leptictidium of Eocene Europe.