Latimeria
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- Forey, P.L. History of the coelacanths, 1998:p. 1 ("Latimeria was recognizably a member of a group of fishes--the coelacanths--well known from the fossil record but thought to have died out some 80 million years previously")
- Catalog of the genera of recent fishes, via WWW, 22 Jan. 1998(Latimeria Smith 1939. Valid. Latimeriidae; Malania Smith 1953. Synonym of Latimeria Smith 1939. Based on an abnormal specimen of Latimeria. In describing the genus Smith proposed an alternate name Melanius which technically was a name in synonymy and never made available.)
Latimeria is a rare genus of fish which contains the two only living species of coelacanth. It includes two extant species: the West Indian Ocean coelacanth (Latimeria chalumnae) and the Indonesian coelacanth (Latimeria menadoensis). They follow the oldest known living lineage of Sarcopterygii (lobe-finned fish and tetrapods), which means they are more closely related to lungfish and tetrapods (amphibians, reptiles and mammals) than to the common ray-finned fishes and cartilaginous fishes. They are found along the coastlines of the Indian Ocean and Indonesia. Since there are only two known species of coelacanth and both are threatened, it is one of the most endangered genera of animals in the world. The West Indian Ocean coelacanth is a critically endangered species.
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