Safekipedia

Coelacanth

Adapted from Wikipedia · Explorer experience

An ancient fish called a coelacanth swimming near the coast of South Africa.

Coelacanths: Ancient Fish That Surprised the World

Coelacanths are a special kind of lobe-finned fish that lived long, long ago. Scientists once thought they had disappeared forever about 66 million years ago. But in 1938, people found a living coelacanth near the coast of South Africa! This amazing discovery showed that some animals thought to be gone were still hiding in the deep ocean.

These fish are very old friends to the world. They are more closely related to lungfish and even land animals like amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals than to most other fish. Because they look almost the same as ancient fossils, people call them a "living fossil".

Today, there are two kinds of living coelacanths. One lives near the Comoro Islands, and the other was found in the seas of Eastern Indonesia, between Manado and Papua. These fish live deep in the ocean and come out at night to find food like small sharks, cuttlefish, and squid.

Coelacanths have special features that make them unique. They have eight fins and a split tail. Their scales are round with tiny bumps. Even though they are rare and live far below the surface, scientists love to study them to learn about life from long ago.

Images

A preserved Coelacanth fish on display at SeaWorld Ancol in Jakarta, Indonesia.
Fossil of Coelacanthus, an ancient fish that lived millions of years ago.
Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer stands beside the newly discovered coelacanth fish, a remarkable moment in scientific history.
Map showing where two types of coelacanths, a rare kind of fish, are found in the world.
Close-up of a Coelacanth's pectoral fin, showcasing this unique fish's anatomy.
Illustration of a coelacanth, a fascinating deep-sea fish discovered in the 1930s.
An artist's reconstruction of the living coelacanth Foreyia maxkuhni, an ancient fish discovered in scientific research.
A scientific illustration of Mawsonia, a giant coelacanth fish that lived during the Cretaceous period.
Scientific illustration showing the estimated size of the ancient fish Mawsonia gigas, helping us understand prehistoric marine life.
An artist's reconstruction of Allenypterus montanus, an ancient fish-like creature that lived in the oceans over 300 million years ago during the Carboniferous period.
A fossil specimen of a coelacanth fish displayed at the Burgmeister Muller Museum in Solnhofen.
A scientific diagram showing the evolutionary family tree of Coelacanth fish over millions of years.
An artist's reconstruction of a coelacanth, an ancient fish from the Triassic period, showing what scientists believe it may have looked like millions of years ago.

Related articles

Million years ago
South Africa
Lungfish
Amphibian
Reptile
Bird

This article is a child-friendly adaptation of the Wikipedia article on Coelacanth, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Images from Wikimedia Commons. Tap any image to view credits and license.