Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 18, 2026

Dissection and Flat-mounting of the Threespine Stickleback Branchial Skeleton
Published on: May 7, 2016
Oldest coelacanth, from the Early Devonian of Australia
Zerina Johanson1, John A Long, John A Talent
1Department of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. zjohanso@bio.mq.edu.au
Abstract:
Coelacanths are well-known sarcopterygian (lobe-finned) fishes, which together with lungfishes are the closest extant relatives of land vertebrates (tetrapods). Coelacanths have both living representatives and a rich fossil record, but lack fossils older than the late Middle Devonian (385-390 Myr ago), conflicting with current phylogenies implying coelacanths diverged from other sarcopterygians in the earliest Devonian (410-415 Myr ago). Here, we report the discovery of a new coelacanth from the Early Devonian of Australia (407-409 Myr ago), which fills in the approximately 20 Myr 'ghost range' between previous coelacanth records and the predicted origin of the group. This taxon is based on a single lower jaw bone, the dentary, which is deep and short in form and possesses a dentary sensory pore, otherwise seen in Carboniferous and younger taxa.
Related Concept Videos
The Fossil Record
What is Evolutionary History?
Speciation Rates
Convergent Evolution
Osmoregulation in Fishes
The Colonization of Land

