WoRMS taxon details
Latimeriidae Berg, 1940
178651 (urn:lsid:marinespecies.org:taxname:178651)
accepted
Family
- Genus Latimeria Smith, 1939
- Genus Latemaria Smith, 1939 accepted as Latimeria Smith, 1939 (unaccepted > misspelling - incorrect subsequent spelling)
- Genus Malania Smith, 1953 accepted as Latimeria Smith, 1939 (unaccepted > junior subjective synonym)
marine, brackish, fresh, terrestrial
Not documented
Distribution Distribution: South Africa ? and Comoros archipelago. Ovoviviparous livebearers which produce 19-59 eggs and about 5 young....
Distribution Distribution: South Africa ? and Comoros archipelago. Ovoviviparous livebearers which produce 19-59 eggs and about 5 young. Eggs can attain a diameter of 9 cm. In the oviduct the young can reach about 33 cm total length. Gestation period 13 month. Adults with maximum length of 1.8 m. Coelacanths live on steep steep rocky shores, sheltering in caves during the day (often in groups) and foraging singly over open substrates at night. Preferred depth 180-220 m, temperature 16-23 C°. They are long-lived, slow-growing, epibenthic drift-predators of fish and squid. Their main enemies are likely to be large sharks. An inventory of all known specimens lists 171 specimens that have been caught off the Comoros since 1952 (Bruton & Coutouvidis, 1991). [details]
Froese, R. and D. Pauly. Editors. (2026). FishBase. Latimeriidae Berg, 1940. Accessed through: World Register of Marine Species at: https://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=178651 on 2026-07-09
Date
action
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Nomenclature
basis of record
Fricke, R., Eschmeyer, W. N. & Van der Laan, R. (eds). (2026). ECoF. Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes: Genera, Species, References. <em>California Academy of Sciences. San Francisco.</em> Electronic version accessed dd mmm 2026., available online at http://researcharchive.calacademy.org/research/Ichthyology/catalog/fishcatmain.asp [details]
Taxonomy
taxonomy source
Van Der Laan, R.; Eschmeyer, W. N.; Fricke, R. (2014). Family-group names of Recent fishes. <em>Zootaxa.</em> 3882(1): 1-230., available online at https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.3882.1.1 [details] Available for editors 
[request]
[request]Unreviewed
Distribution Distribution: South Africa ? and Comoros archipelago. Ovoviviparous livebearers which produce 19-59 eggs and about 5 young. Eggs can attain a diameter of 9 cm. In the oviduct the young can reach about 33 cm total length. Gestation period 13 month. Adults with maximum length of 1.8 m. Coelacanths live on steep steep rocky shores, sheltering in caves during the day (often in groups) and foraging singly over open substrates at night. Preferred depth 180-220 m, temperature 16-23 C°. They are long-lived, slow-growing, epibenthic drift-predators of fish and squid. Their main enemies are likely to be large sharks. An inventory of all known specimens lists 171 specimens that have been caught off the Comoros since 1952 (Bruton & Coutouvidis, 1991). [details]
| Language | Name | |
|---|---|---|
| English | gombessa | [details] |
