Visiting the Liverpool World Museum is at all times a delight. Amongst the reveals there’s a small part that highlights the evolution of tetrapods. There’s a gorgeous coelacanth specimen on show. Coelacanths are generally known as “residing fossils”. They’re lobed-finned fishes (Sarcopterygii) within the class Actinistia. Their fossil report dates again to the Devonian. The final of their sort was thought to have change into extinct on the finish of the Cretaceous. That was, till December 1938, when a coelacanth was caught by a fisherman off the east coast of South Africa near the Chalumna River estuary.

Coelacanth specimen on display.

A shocking coelacanth specimen on show at Liverpool World Museum. Image credit score: Every part Dinosaur.

Image credit score: Every part Dinosaur

The Significance of the Coelacanth Specimen

The coelacanth show is an element of a bigger exhibit that highlights the evolutionary transition of vertebrates onto the land. As these fish have fleshy, lobe-like fins it had been thought that the coelacanth may be the youngest diverging non-tetrapod sarcopterygian. Nevertheless, the genome of this fish was sequenced in 2013, and it was found that lungfish are extra carefully associated to tetrapods.

To learn in regards to the sequencing of the coelacanth genome: The Coelacanth Will get Its Genome Unravelled.

Scale drawing of a Coelacanth. What is a Coelacanth?

A scale drawing of a coelacanth (Latimeria). Image credit score: Every part Dinosaur.

Image credit score: Every part Dinosaur

Liverpool World Museum is a good place to go to. Should you go, please check out the coelacanth show. It’s a great option to join with a gaggle of creatures which have been round because the Devonian.

A number of fashions of coelacanths have been produced.  For instance, each the Mojo Enjoyable and Safari Ltd ranges embrace coelacanth figures.

For prehistoric animal fashions go to the Every part Dinosaur web site: Prehistoric Animal Fashions.