Coelacanthus

Coelacanthus, from Ancient Greek κοῖλος (koîlos), meaning "hollow", and ἄκανθα (ákantha), meaning "spine", is a genus of extinct marine coelacanths known from the late Permian period. It was the first genus of coelacanths described, about a century before the discovery of the extant coelacanth Latimeria. The order Coelacanthiformes is named after it.

A picture published with the record for Coelacanthus.

Ghedoghedo · CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
CoelacanthidaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Coelacanthidae
Life habit
nektobenthicPBDB, for Coelacanthidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes

Time the record covers

At least 78 million years on record.

The record covers at least 315.2 Mya to 237 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 323.4 Mya to 201.4 Mya.

Carboniferous — about 5 of 24 occurrencesCarboniferousPermian — about 14 of 24 occurrencesPermianEarly Triassic — about 4 of 24 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 0 of 24 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 1 of 24 occurrencesLate TriassicEarly Jurassic — about 0 of 24 occurrences326–322 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences322–317 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences317–313 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences313–309 Mya — about 2 occurrences309–305 Mya — about 1 occurrence262–258 Mya — about 4 occurrences258–254 Mya — about 10 occurrences254–250 Mya — about 3 occurrences250–245 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences237–233 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences233–229 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences229–224 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences224–220 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences220–216 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences216–212 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences212–207 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences207–203 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences203–199 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences315.2 Mya237 Mya326 Mya199 Mya

24 occurrences of Coelacanthus on record, most of them in the Permian. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

24 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

7 formations

Kupferschiefer — 52.23°N, 7.96°EKupferschiefer — 50.97°N, 10.01°ERaisby — 54.69°N, 1.52°WRaisby — 54.63°N, 1.63°WRaisby — 54.93°N, 1.41°WSpray River — 51.22°N, 115.80°WZechstein — 51.23°N, 8.89°ECarbondale — 41.34°N, 88.39°WUpper Kittanning Coal — 40.80°N, 80.47°WMiddle Culm — 51.05°N, 4.18°W

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The named rock units Coelacanthus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 6 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Coelacanthus and its relatives

Permian

Where Coelacanthus and its relatives were recorded in the Permian.

Found in the same rock

144 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 23 sites for Coelacanthus, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

15 references

Each of the 24 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 3 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content2

Picture of Coelacanthus

Credit
Ghedoghedo
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution-NonCommercial
Commercial use
the licence does not allow it

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itCoelacanthidae through timeFormations of the PermianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Agassiz 1839