![cover image](https://wikiwandv2-19431.kxcdn.com/_next/image?url=https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/28/Latimeria_chalumnae.jpg/640px-Latimeria_chalumnae.jpg&w=640&q=50)
West Indian Ocean coelacanth
Species of lobe-finned bony fish / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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]