{"id":408803,"date":"2025-09-08T22:00:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-08T22:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/408803\/"},"modified":"2025-09-08T22:00:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-08T22:00:11","slug":"multiple-new-species-of-living-fossil-fish-found-hiding-in-plain-sight-after-more-than-150-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/408803\/","title":{"rendered":"Multiple new species of ‘living fossil’ fish found hiding in plain sight after more than 150 years"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Multiple<\/p>\n

Reconstruction of a large mawsoniid coelacanth from the British Rhaetian. Credit: Daniel Phillips<\/p>\n

The modern coelacanth is a famous “living fossil,” long thought to have died out, but first fished out of deep waters in the Indian Ocean in 1938. Since then, dozens of examples have been found, but their fossil history is patchy.<\/p>\n

In a new study<\/a> published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, Jacob Quinn and colleagues from the University of Bristol and University of Uruguay in Montevideo have identified coelacanths in museum collections<\/a> that had been missed for 150 years.<\/p>\n

The fossils identified in the new work date from the very end of the Triassic Period, some 200 million years ago, when the U.K. lay at more tropical latitudes.<\/p>\n

“During his Masters in Paleobiology at Bristol, Jacob realized that many fossils previously assigned to the small marine reptile Pachystropheus actually came from coelacanth fishes,” says Professor Mike Benton, one of Quinn’s supervisors. “Many of the Pachystropheus and coelacanth fossils have uncanny similarities, but importantly, Jacob then went off to look at collections around the country, and he found the same mistake had been made many times.”<\/p>\n

“It is remarkable that some of these specimens<\/a> had been in museum storage facilities, and even on public display, since the late 1800s, and have seemingly been disregarded or identified as bones of lizards, mammals, and everything in-between,” said Quinn. “From just four previous reports of coelacanths from the British Triassic, we now have over 50.”<\/p>\n

\"Multiple<\/p>\n

Comparison between clavicles (collar bones) from (A) the British Triassic and (B) the largest known coelacanth, Mawsonia gigas, from the Cretaceous of\u00a0South America. Credit: Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology (2025). DOI: 10.1080\/02724634.2025.2520921<\/p>\n

Quinn made X-ray scans of many specimens to confirm the identifications. The specimens mostly belong to an extinct group of coelacanths, the Mawsoniidae, but are closely related to the living fish.<\/p>\n

Co-author Pablo Tori\u00f1o, a world expert on coelacanths, located in Uruguay, added, “Although the material we identify occurs as isolated specimens, we can see that they come from individuals of varying ages, sizes, and species, some of them up to one meter long, and suggesting a complex community at the time.”<\/p>\n

“The coelacanth<\/a> fossils all come from the area of Bristol and Mendip Hills, which in the Triassic was an archipelago of small islands in a shallow tropical sea,” said co-supervisor Dr. David Whiteside.<\/p>\n

“Like modern day coelacanths, these large fishes were likely opportunistic predators, lurking around the seafloor and eating anything they encountered, probably including these small Pachystropheus marine reptiles, which is ironic given their fossils have been confused with those of coelacanths for decades.”<\/p>\n

More information:<\/strong>
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJacob G. Quinn et al, Coelacanthiform fishes of the British Rhaetian, Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology (2025). DOI: 10.1080\/02724634.2025.2520921<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tProvided by
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tUniversity of Bristol<\/a>
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCitation<\/strong>:
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMultiple new species of ‘living fossil’ fish found hiding in plain sight after more than 150 years (2025, September 8)
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tretrieved 8 September 2025
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tfrom https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2025-09-multiple-species-fossil-fish-plain.html\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Reconstruction of a large mawsoniid coelacanth from the British Rhaetian. Credit: Daniel Phillips The modern coelacanth is a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":408804,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[75,76,74,71,70,72,53,73,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-408803","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-materials","9":"tag-nanotech","10":"tag-physics","11":"tag-physics-news","12":"tag-science","13":"tag-science-news","14":"tag-technology","15":"tag-technology-news","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115170929900275135","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=408803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408803\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/408804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=408803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=408803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=408803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}