Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Any of various mostly extinct fishes of the order Coelacanthiformes, known only in fossil form until a single living species, Latimeria chalumnae of African marine waters, was identified in 1938.
Wiktionary
- n. Either of two species of deep-water fish, Latimeria chalumnae of the Indian Ocean and L. menadoensis of Indonesia.
- n. Any lobe-finned fish in the order Coelacanthiformes, thought until 1938 to have been extinct for 70 million years.
WordNet 3.0
- n. fish thought to have been extinct since the Cretaceous period but found in 1938 off the coast of Africa
Etymologies
- Ancient Greek κοῖλος (koilos, "hollow") + ἄκανθα (akantha, "spine"). (Wiktionary)
- New Latin Coelacanthus, former genus name : Greek koilos, hollow; see -coel + Greek akantha, spine. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Speaking of very confused, the coelacanth is a ‘living fossil’ in the sense that the two known contemporary species belong to a very old subclass, previously thought to be extinct.”
“The coelacanth is a large predatory fish that lives in deep water mainly in the Indian ocea, although specimens have recently been found off Indonesia.”
“Someone went digging in the Company archives and discovered that the coelacanth was a Dr. Zeus special.”
“The coelacanth was a five-foot-long fish thought to have died out sixty-five million years ago, until a specimen was pulled from the ocean in 1938.”
“A research team from Indonesia's Sam Ratulangi University, Indonesian Science Institution and Fukushima Aquamarine Japan on Monday once again found prehistoric fish called coelacanth at Talise waters of North Minahasa in 155 meter-depth.”
“Tiktaalik, Menton said, is not unique in having these bones because other lobe-fish, such as "coelacanth" fish, also have them.”
“For years, the coelacanth which is found in fossil layers allegedly 70 million or more years old was believed to be an extinct transitional form, one of the “proofs” of evolution because of its fleshy, lobed fins.”
“It’s identified as a coelacanth, a fish long thought to be extinct.”
“It’s identified as a coelacanth, a fish thought to be long extinct.”
“I had these books and the coelacanth was their big find and they were like 'Whoa, it exists,'"he said after the match.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘coelacanth’.
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fish list
lots and lots of fish, a piscatorial
wetdreamablet, agnathan, ahi, ahuru, ahuruhuru, albacore, albicore, alec, alewife, allice, allis, amberjack and 840 more...
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• De rerum natura
What is this list about?
Interesting words in nature and natural science (in any language!).
What kind of words am I supposed to add?
You can add species names that you lov...lagerstätte, parthenogenesis, bushbaby, lepidoptera, dinoflagellate, pupation, chrysalis, ephemeroptera, deinococcus radio..., homoplasy, sciophilous, syncytium and 218 more...
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PECH - marine species
Alaska plaice, African cuttlefish, Alaska pollock, Alaska pollack, walleye pollock, alewife, gaspereau, river herring, sawbelly, allis shad, American angler, goosefish and 994 more...
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Words that have "ae" or "oe"
Add any words you know that have these letter combinations!
acoelous, cacoethes, aeschylean, aborvitae, phaeochrous, aeneous, algae, aesthetic, aerobics, daedal, vitae, minutiae and 53 more...
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•Unexpected Pronunciation, Now! with ...
Inspired to publicity by the conversation at segway. Thanks, pals!
boatswain, clapboard, waistcoat, victuals, forecastle, solder, colonel, ensign, worcestershire sauce, creatinine, coelacanth, banal and 79 more...
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connexion
link, joining, junction, concatenation, hookup, isthmus, ligament, articulation, node, tie, relation, intersection and 86 more...
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What's That Pokémon Name?
Words used to create the names of Pokémon, which are usually portmanteaux.
bulb, dinosaur, ivy, venus, char, salamander, squirt, turtle, blast, tortoise, water, caterpillar and 525 more...
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vmarinelli's Words
canard, gumption, inexorable, insouciance, inviolable, mordant, euphonious, sawbuck, carpe diem, pay dirt, adipocere, profligate and 496 more...
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NeoVolt's Words
schadenfreude, serendipity, idiosyncrasy, loess, caducous, vagary, schematic, steeple, licentious, tangential, verisimilitude, vernacular and 385 more...
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Sweet Smoke of Rhetoric
The ones with which I flavor my speech, and the ones I love to find peppered in literature.
perspicacious, acerbic, vituperation, loquacious, castigate, vitriolic, scintillating, provenance, frolic, attendant, pursuant, epistemology and 313 more...
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bertilak's Words
antidisestablishm..., feldercarb, wainscoting, eleemosynary, oxymoron, fuliginous, libration, lammergeier, saxifrage, ichor, lambent, smaragdine and 414 more...
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harveythechainsaw's Words
lickspittle, syllogism, redounds, boffo, maw, flibbertigibbet, elan, phalanx, plinth, wonk, janjaweed, madreporic and 142 more...
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Not Dinosaurs
A temporary place to store all those annoying prehistoric animals that refuse to correlate to my manner of (dis)organization. Gah!
See also "Words of Dinosaurology," "Dinosaurs," "Pter...deltasaurus, champsosaur, discosauriscus, diplocaulus, dunkleosteus, dimetrodon, dragonfly, echinoderm, edaphosaurus, eosuchian, eotitanosuchid, equisetum and 185 more...
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nfrank's Words
antediluvian, equivocate, inchoate, denouement, effulgent, edify, endemic, palimpsest, apropos, circumnavigate, circumlocution, cognoscente and 484 more...
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wolfson's Words
cicisbeo, animadversion, drupe, callipygian, rhadamanthine, poetaster, philosophaster, grammaticaster, lacuna, infralapsarian, incunabula, logorrhea and 142 more...
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Spod's Words
corpulent, squidge, squiffy, sinuosity, ebullient, finger, penetrate, stimulate, recalcitrant, recidivist, dunnock, rococo and 152 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for coelacanth.
fbharjo a 'link' to ancient fish Oct 23, 2010
treeseed I used to catch a kind of bowfin that was called a dogfish when I lived in Minnesota. They always reminded me of coelacanths. Bowfins are an order (Amiiformes) of primitive ray-finned fish. Only one species, the bowfin Amia calva, family Amiidae, exists today, although additional species in six families are known from Jurassic, Cretaceous, and Eocene fossils. Feb 4, 2008