New Coelacanth Species Discovered in Texas

By Ker Than

new species of hundred-million-year-old coelacanth has been found, according to a new analysis of bone fragments.

One of the world's oldest types of fish, coelacanths (pronounced SEE-la-kanths) are primitive, slow-moving fish that had been thought extinct until an individual was found off Africa in 1938. There are now over 40 known coelacanth species. The two that live today are called living fossils because they have remained virtually unchanged for 320 million years.

The newfound coelacanth has been dubbed Reidus hilli in honor of its discoverer Robert Reid, an artist who found the fish's fossilized skull near his home in Forth Worth, Texas, in the late 1980s.

Reid donated the skull to nearby Southern Methodist University, where scientists quickly identified it based on unique bones, called gular plates, on the underside of its jaw.

"Almost from the get-go, we knew it was a coelacanth," said study leader John Graf, a paleontologist at the university.

However, it wasn't until Graf recently studied the skull bones in detail that he determined they had belonged to a previously unknown species of the ancient fish group....