West Indian Ocean coelacanth
Species of lobe-finned bony fish / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The West Indian Ocean coelacanth[6] (Latimeria chalumnae) (sometimes known as gombessa,[2][7] African coelacanth,[8] or simply coelacanth[9]) is a crossopterygian,[10] one of two extant species of coelacanth, a rare order of vertebrates more closely related to lungfish and tetrapods than to the common ray-finned fishes. The other extant species is the Indonesian coelacanth (L. menadoensis).
| West Indian Ocean coelacanth | |
|---|---|
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Scientific classification  | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Clade: | Sarcopterygii |
| Class: | Actinistia |
| Order: | Coelacanthiformes |
| Family: | Latimeriidae |
| Genus: | Latimeria |
| Species: | L. chalumnae |
| Binomial name | |
| Latimeria chalumnae J. L. B. Smith, 1939 | |
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| L. chalumnae range in red | |
| Synonyms[4][5] | |
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The West Indian Ocean coelacanth was historically known by fishermen around the Comoro Islands (where it is known as gombessa), Madagascar, and Mozambique in the western Indian Ocean,[11] but first scientifically recognised from a specimen collected in South Africa in 1938.
This coelacanth was once thought to be evolutionarily conservative, but discoveries have shown initial morphological diversity.[12] It has a vivid blue pigment, and is the better known of the two extant species. The species has been assessed as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List.[2]