noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
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"Among them were ancient relatives of the piranhas and those popular aquarium fish the tetras, along with garfish and freshwater coelacanths, known as mawsonids."
"The coelacanth inhabits the deep sea."
Any of the class Actinistia of primitive lobe-finned fish, thought to have been extinct for 70 million years until a living specimen was discovered in 1938. Most species are large and plump and they all have bodies covered in tough elasmoid scales that act as armor.
Common synonyms include: fish, fossil coelacanths, latimeria, latimeria chalumnae, living fossil, western indian ocean coelacanth.
The coelacanth inhabits the deep sea.
Pronounced /ˈsiː.lə.kænθ/.
From the New Latin genus name Coelacanthus, from Ancient Greek κοῖλος (koîlos, “hollow”) + ἄκανθα (ákantha, “spine”), referring to the hollow caudal fin rays of the first fossil specimen described and named by Louis Agassiz in 1839.