Coelacanths were thought to have become extinct in the Late Cretaceous, around 66 million years ago, but were discovered living off the coast of South Africa in 1938. The oldest known coelacanth fossils are over 410 million years old. The name "coelacanth" originates from the Permian genus Coelacanthus, which was the first scientifically named coelacanth. Well-represented in both freshwater and marine fossils since the Devonian, they are now represented by only two extant marine species in the genus Latimeria: the West Indian Ocean coelacanth ( Latimeria chalumnae), primarily found near the Comoro Islands off the east coast of Africa, and the Indonesian coelacanth ( Latimeria menadoensis). As sarcopterygians, they are more closely related to lungfish and tetrapods (which includes amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals) than to ray-finned fish. Coelacanths ( / ˈ s iː l ə k æ n θ/ ( listen) SEE-lə-kanth) (order Coelacanthiformes) are an ancient group of lobe-finned fish (Sarcopterygii) in the class Actinistia.
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