Researchers have discovered a new species of fossil coelacanth on Gooniyandi Country in northern Western Australia. Around 380 million years ago, the site was a tropical reef teeming with more than 50 species of fish.
- Ngamugawi wirngarri, the new fossil coelacanth, is the first fish found in the area to bear a name given from the Gooniyandi language. The name means “ancient fish in honour of Wirngarri”, a respected elder of the community.
- As per researchers, this is the best-preserved coelacanth fossil ever found from the ancient period hundreds of millions of years ago when these ancient sea-dwellers first evolved.
- Coelacanths are deep-sea fish that live off the coasts of southern Africa and Indonesia and can reach up to two metres in length.
- The greatest influence on coelacanth evolution was not ocean temperature or oxygen levels but tectonic activity.
- When the vast plates of Earth’s crust were moving around more, new species were more likely to appear.
- Coelacanths are “lobe-finned” fish, which means they have robust bones in their fins a bit like the bones in our arms.
- Scientists believe they are more closely related to tetrapods (animals with backbones and four limbs, such as frogs, emus and humans) than to most other fishes.
- Coelacanths have been around for a long time. The oldest known fossils are more than 410 million years old.
