Coelacanthidae

Coelacanthidae is an extinct family of coelacanths found in freshwater and marine strata throughout the world, originating during the Permian, and finally dying out during the Jurassic.

Coelacanthidae

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
CoelacanthiformesPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB
Life habit
nektobenthicPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes

Time the record covers

At least 202 million years on record.

The record covers at least 315.2 Mya to 113.2 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 323.4 Mya to 100.5 Mya.

Carboniferous — about 11 of 70 occurrencesCarboniferousPermian — about 14 of 70 occurrencesPermianEarly Triassic — about 14 of 70 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 8 of 70 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 20 of 70 occurrencesLate TriassicEarly Jurassic — about 1 of 70 occurrencesEarly JurassicMiddle Jurassic — about 0 of 70 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 1 of 70 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous — about 1 of 70 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 0 of 70 occurrences328–320 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences320–312 Mya — about 1 occurrence312–305 Mya — about 5 occurrences305–297 Mya — about 4 occurrences266–258 Mya — about 4 occurrences258–251 Mya — about 15 occurrences251–243 Mya — about 13 occurrences243–235 Mya — about 5 occurrences235–227 Mya — about 3 occurrences227–220 Mya — about 6 occurrences220–212 Mya — about 6 occurrences212–204 Mya — about 5 occurrences204–196 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences196–189 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences189–181 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences166–158 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences158–150 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences150–142 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences119–111 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences111–104 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences104–96 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences315.2 Mya113.2 Mya328 Mya96 Mya

70 occurrences of Coelacanthidae on record, most of them in the Late Triassic. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group, and the chart stops with its fossils rather than at the present. 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

70 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

29 formations

Kupferschiefer — 52.23°N, 7.96°EKupferschiefer — 50.97°N, 10.01°EWild Cow — 34.95°N, 106.30°WRaisby — 54.69°N, 1.52°WRaisby — 54.63°N, 1.63°WRaisby — 54.93°N, 1.41°WKongressfjellet — 78.28°N, 17.63°EKongressfjellet — 78.25°N, 18.06°EKongressfjellet — 78.57°N, 15.32°EKongressfjellet — 78.24°N, 17.21°EChinle — 34.44°N, 109.46°WChinle — 34.83°N, 109.82°WChinle — 36.33°N, 106.47°WMuschelkalk — 41.27°N, 1.12°ETecovas — 33.45°N, 101.17°WBull Canyon — 35.37°N, 103.38°WRedonda — 34.94°N, 103.43°WRedonda — 35.00°N, 103.67°WMoenkopi — 35.08°N, 110.84°WMoenkopi — 34.92°N, 110.26°WHelongshan — 31.63°N, 117.83°EGrès à Voltzia — 48.73°N, 7.17°EGrès à Voltzia — 48.78°N, 7.25°EKayenta — 36.62°N, 110.50°WDockum — 33.50°N, 101.13°WColorado City — 32.17°N, 101.25°WBluewater Creek — 35.42°N, 108.49°WTrujillo — 34.96°N, 101.70°WHuai Hin Lat — 16.53°N, 101.63°ETimezgadiouine — 31.03°N, 9.04°WSpray River — 51.22°N, 115.80°WZechstein — 51.23°N, 8.89°EPurlawaugh — 32.17°S, 149.70°ECarbondale — 41.34°N, 88.39°WMeissner — 49.28°N, 9.71°E

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The named rock units Coelacanthidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 5 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 10 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Coelacanthidae and its relatives

Late Triassic

Where Coelacanthidae and its relatives were recorded in the Late Triassic.

Found in the same rock

625 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 66 sites for Coelacanthidae, 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

47 references

Each of the 70 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. 35 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 content1

Picture of Coelacanthidae

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

No 3D scan of Coelacanthidae was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

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 itCoelacanthiformes through timeFormations of the Late TriassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Agassiz 1843