Latimeriidae

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.

Latimeriidae

Bruce A.S. Henderson · CC BY 4.0 · 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
LatimerioideiPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes

Time the record covers

At least 174 million years on record.

The record covers at least 247 Mya to 72.2 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 250.8 Mya to 66 Mya.

Permian — about 0 of 62 occurrencesEarly Triassic — about 1 of 62 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 26 of 62 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 3 of 62 occurrencesLate TriassicEarly Jurassic — about 8 of 62 occurrencesEarly JurassicMiddle Jurassic — about 2 of 62 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 9 of 62 occurrencesLate JurassicEarly Cretaceous — about 4 of 62 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 9 of 62 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 62 occurrences254–248 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences248–242 Mya — about 19 occurrences242–235 Mya — about 8 occurrences216–210 Mya — about 3 occurrences203–197 Mya — about 3 occurrences197–190 Mya — about 2 occurrences190–184 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences184–178 Mya — about 2 occurrences178–171 Mya — about 1 occurrence171–165 Mya — about 1 occurrence158–152 Mya — about 2 occurrences152–146 Mya — about 7 occurrences146–139 Mya — about 1 occurrence139–133 Mya — about 1 occurrence126–120 Mya — about 2 occurrences101–94 Mya — about 3 occurrences94–88 Mya — about 1 occurrence88–82 Mya — about 3 occurrences82–75 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences75–69 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences69–62 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences247 Mya72.2 Mya254 Mya62 Mya

62 occurrences of Latimeriidae on record, most of them in the Middle 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

62 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

22 formations

Besano — 45.91°N, 8.94°EProsanto — 46.75°N, 9.72°EProsanto — 46.68°N, 9.82°EKota — 18.92°N, 79.98°EKota — 19.19°N, 79.74°EKota — 18.69°N, 80.22°EBlufftown — 32.02°N, 85.15°WBlufftown — 32.16°N, 85.03°WDolomia Principale — 40.72°N, 14.95°ESolnhofen — 48.91°N, 11.14°ELa Huérguina — 40.06°N, 1.88°WAkkuyu — 37.27°N, 31.78°EPainten — 48.92°N, 11.58°EEutaw — 32.26°N, 85.27°WNavesink — 40.31°N, 74.22°WDolomia di Forni — 46.38°N, 12.86°ELewes Nodular Chalk — 51.25°N, 2.16°WLipovskaya — 49.26°N, 43.67°ELiegende Bankkalk — 48.12°N, 8.87°EDont — 46.74°N, 12.12°ENiobrara — 38.66°N, 100.40°WStaldengraben — 46.53°N, 6.98°EGrey Chalk — 51.08°N, 1.17°ESpeeton Clay — 54.27°N, 0.40°WLa Pedrera de Rúbies — 42.03°N, 0.83°EBesano — 45.89°N, 8.90°E

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Latimeriidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 13 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Latimeriidae and its relatives

Middle Triassic

Where Latimeriidae and its relatives were recorded in the Middle Triassic.

Found in the same rock

731 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 59 sites for Latimeriidae, 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

35 references

Each of the 62 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. 23 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 Latimeriidae

Credit
Bruce A.S. Henderson
Licence
CC BY 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Latimeriidae 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 itLatimerioidei through timeFormations of the Middle TriassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Berg 1940