Coelacanths are an ancient group of lobe-finned fish (Sarcopterygii) in the class Actinistia. As sarcopterygians, they are more closely related to lungfish and tetrapods than to ray-finned fish.
Apsopelix is an extinct genus of ray-finned fish that existed about 95-80 million years ago in the shallow waters of the Western Interior Seaway, Hudson Seaway, England, France, and Japan.
Chinlea is an extinct genus of late Triassic Mawsoniid coelacanth fish found in and named after the Chinle Formation that crops out in the southwestern states of Arizona and New Mexico. The word “Chinle” comes from the Navajo word meaning "flowing out", referencing the location where water flows out of the Canyon de Chelly. They were also possibly found in the Dockum Group.
Latimeriidae is the only extant family of coelacanths, an ancient lineage of lobe-finned fish. It contains two extant species in the genus Latimeria, found in deep waters off the coasts of southern Africa and east-central Indonesia. In addition, several fossil genera are known from the Mesozoic of Europe, the Middle East, and the southeastern United States, dating back to the Triassic.
The Indonesian coelacanth, also called Sulawesi coelacanth, is one of two living species of coelacanth, identifiable by its brown color. It is listed as vulnerable by the IUCN, while the other species, L. chalumnae is listed as critically endangered. Separate populations of the Indonesian coelacanth are found in the waters of north Sulawesi as well as Papua and West Papua.
Axelrodichthys is an extinct genus of mawsoniid coelacanth from the Cretaceous of Africa, North and South America, and Europe. Several species are known, the remains of which were discovered in the Lower Cretaceous (Aptian-Albian) of Brazil, North Africa, and possibly Mexico, as well as in the Upper Cretaceous of Morocco (Cenomanian), Madagascar and France. The Axelrodichthys of the Lower Cretaceous frequented both brackish and coastal marine waters while the most recent species lived exclusively in fresh waters. The French specimens are the last known fresh water coelacanths. Most of the species of this genus reached 1 metre to 2 metres in length. Axelrodichthys was named in 1986 by John G. Maisey in honor of the American ichthyologist Herbert R. Axelrod.
Mawsonia is an extinct genus of prehistoric coelacanth fish. It is amongst the largest of all coelacanths, with one quadrate specimen possibly belonging to an individual measuring 5.3 metres in length. It lived in freshwater and brackish environments from the late Jurassic to the mid-Cretaceous of South America, eastern North America, and Africa. Mawsonia was first described by British paleontologist Arthur Smith Woodward in 1907.
Mawsoniidae is an extinct family of prehistoric coelacanth fishes which lived during the Triassic to Cretaceous periods. Members of the family are distinguished from their sister group, the Latimeriidae by the presence of ossified ribs, a coarse rugose texture on the dermatocranium and cheek bones, the absence of the suboperculum and the spiracular, and reduction or loss of the descending process of the supratemporal. Mawsoniids are known from North America, Europe, South America, Africa, Madagascar and Asia. Unlike Latimeriidae, which are exclusively marine, Mawsoniidae were also native to freshwater and brackish environments. Mawsoniids represent among the youngest known coelacanths, with the youngest known remains of the freshwater genus Axelrodichthys from France and an indeterminate marine species from Morocco being from the final stage of the Cretaceous, the Maastrichtian, roughly equivalent in age to the youngest known fossils of latimeriids. Species of Mawsonia and Trachymetopon are known to have exceeded 5 metres in length, making them among the largest known bony fish to have ever existed.
Whiteia is an extinct genus of prehistoric coelacanth fish which lived during the Triassic period. It is named after Errol White.
Chibapsetta is an extinct genus of prehistoric right-eye flounder that lived during the Pleistocene epoch. It contains a single species, C. dolichurostyli from what is now Tōgane, Japan. Some authors instead place its stratigraphic range as Late Pliocene.
Lualabaea is an extinct genus of prehistoric freshwater coelacanth, belonging to the family Mawsoniidae, from the Jurassic period. It contains two species, L. lericheiSaint-Seine, 1955 and L. henryiSaint-Seine, 1955, both known from the Stanleyville Formation of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It may be related to or possibly synonymous with Axelrodichthys.
Swenzia is an extinct genus of coelacanthid fish from the late Jurassic of France. It contains a single species, S. latimerae, which was originally described as Wenzia latimerae. Because the generic name Wenzia was already preoccupied by a snail, the generic name was amended to Swenzia. It is the fossil genus most closely related to the living coelacanth, Latimeria.
Sinamia is an extinct genus of freshwater amiiform fish which existed in China, Japan, South Korea and North Korea during the Early Cretaceous period. Like the related bowfin, it has an elongated low-running dorsal fin, though this was likely convergently evolved.
Sikannisuchus is an extinct genus of large archosaur from upper Triassic deposits of northeastern British Columbia, Canada. It is known from the holotype, TMP 94.382.3, a posterior portion of skull roof and from other fragmentary remains. It was found from four localities of the Pardonet Formation, near the community of Sikanni Chief. It was first named by Elizabeth L. Nicholls, Donald B. Brinkman, and Xiao-Chun Wu in 1998 and the type species is Sikannisuchus huskyi. It would have reached about 4 metres (13 ft) in length. Ichthyosaurs such as Macgowania, Callawayia and possibly the giant shastasaurid Shonisaurus, coelacanths Whiteia banffensis and possibly Garnbergia, and various genera of molluscs including ammonites and bivalves have also been found in the Pardonet Formation.
Nipponocypris is a genus of cyprinid fish containing three extant species, one endemic to Japan, one to South Korea while the third occurs in Japan, Korea and China. A fourth, extinct species is known from Middle Pleistocene-aged freshwater strata from the Kusu Basin in Japan.
Chuhsiungichthys is an extinct genus of ichthyodectiform ray-finned fish that lived in freshwater environments in what is now Yunnan, China, and Kyushu, Japan during the Cretaceous. It differs from its sister genus, Mesoclupea, primarily by having a comparatively more anteriorly-placed dorsal fin.
Sinipercidae, the Chinese perches or Oriental perches, is a family of freshwater ray-finned fishes, part of the order Centrarchiformes. They have been placed within the temperate perch family, Percichthyidae in the past but may be more closely allied to the Centrarchidae.
The Pastos Bons Formation is a Late Jurassic geologic formation of the Parnaíba Basin in Maranhão, northeastern Brazil. The formation forms part of the sag phase of the basin. It overlies the Sardinha Formation and is overlain by the Mosquito Formation. The fluvial to lacustrine sandstones and shales have provided fossils of a coelacanth fish, Parnaibaia maranhaoensis and a paralligatorid named after the formation, Batrachomimus pastosbonensis.
Wakinoichthys is a small freshwater fish from the Early Cretaceous of South Korea and Japan. Two species are currently known: W. aokii and W. robustus.
Araripelepidotes is a genus of ginglymodian fish.
