Oldest coelacanth, from the Early Devonian of Australia

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.