coelacanth: see lobefin lobefin, common name for any of a group of lunged, fleshy-finned, bony fishes, also called crossopterygians, that were dominant in the Devonian period and gave rise to amphibians.
..... Click the link for more information. ; fish fish, limbless aquatic vertebrate animal with fins and internal gills. There are three living classes of fish: the primitive jawless fishes, or Agnatha; the cartilaginous (sharklike) fishes, or Chondrichthyes; and the bony fishes, or Osteichthyes.
..... Click the link for more information. .
Any lobe-finned bony fish of the order Crossopterygii. Members of an extinct suborder are considered to have been the ancestors of land vertebrates. Modern coelacanths (genus Latimeria) are deep-sea fishes with hollow fin spines. They are powerful, heavy-bodied predators, with highly mobile, limblike fins. They average 5 ft (1.5 m) in length and weigh about 100 lbs (45 kg). Coelacanths appeared about 350 million years ago and were thought to have become extinct 80 million years ago until one was caught in 1938 near the southern coast of Africa in the Indian Ocean. A second species was discovered living near Indonesia in 1998.
coelacanth
coelacanth [′sē·lə‚kanth]
..... Click the link for more information. ; fish fish, limbless aquatic vertebrate animal with fins and internal gills. There are three living classes of fish: the primitive jawless fishes, or Agnatha; the cartilaginous (sharklike) fishes, or Chondrichthyes; and the bony fishes, or Osteichthyes.
..... Click the link for more information. .
coelacanth
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Coelacanth (Latimeria chalumnae)
(credit: Peter Green—Ardea Photographics)
coelacanth
a primitive marine bony fish of the genus Latimeria (subclass Crossopterygii), having fleshy limblike pectoral fins and occurring off the coast of E Africa: thought to be extinct until a living specimen was discovered in 1938
coelacanth [′sē·lə‚kanth]
(vertebrate zoology)
Any member of the Coelacanthiformes, an order of lobefin fishes represented by a single living genus,Latimeria.
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