WoRMS taxon details
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]
basis of record
Fricke, R., Eschmeyer, W. N. & Van der Laan, R. (eds). (2024). ECoF. Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes: Genera, Species, References. <em>California Academy of Sciences. San Francisco.</em> Electronic version accessed dd mmm 2024., available online at http://researcharchive.calacademy.org/research/Ichthyology/catalog/fishcatmain.asp [details]
From other sources
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]
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