Latimeriidae
family of coelacanth fishes
Latimeriidae is a family of coelacanths. It is the only and longest living extant group of coelacanths containing two extant species in the genus Latimeria. Today, they are found in deep waters off the coasts of southern Africa and east-central Indonesia. Several fossil genera dating back to the Triassic period are known from the Mesozoic of Europe, the Middle East, and the southeastern United States.
Currently, the largest known member of the family is Megalocoelacanthus which may have reached a total body length in excess of 4.5 metres.
Evolution
Coelacanths are thought to have split from other lobed-finned fishes during the lower Devonian period. Latimeriids evolved during the Middle Triassic period possibly originating in the western Tethys Sea as many of their earliest species are known from areas that the sea formerly covered.
The fossil record of Latimeriids contains two major gaps. The first gap covers a 50 million year timespan between the Berriasian and the Albian ages which is the entirely of the lower Cretaceous period. The oldest member from the lower Cretaceous is Macropoma gombessae from the Gault Formation of England.
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This entry incorporates text from “Latimeriidae” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.