Critically Endangered
West Indian Ocean coelacanth
Latimeria chalumnae
West Indian Ocean coelacanth is a ray-finned fish in the family Latimeriidae (order Coelacanthiformes) — Latimeria chalumnae, recorded as Critically Endangered.
Range and habitat
L. Chalumnae are usually found between 70–140 m (230–460 ft) of depth, but are sometimes found as deep as 243 m (797 ft) and as shallow as 54 metres (177 ft). This may limit their maximum depth range, along with lack of prey. The West Indian Ocean coelacanth, also called the gombessa, African coelacanth, and simply coelacanth, is a crossopterygian, one of two extant species of coelacanth, a rare order of vertebrates more closely related to lungfish and tetrapods than to the common ray-finned fishes.
The West Indian Ocean coelacanth was historically known by fishermen around the Comoro Islands (where it is known as gombessa), Madagascar, and Mozambique in the western Indian Ocean, but first scientifically recognised from a specimen collected in South Africa in 1938. Near Grand Comoro, an island northwest of Madagascar, a maximum of 370 individuals reside.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
In crisis
The species has been assessed as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List. In 1991, it was estimated that 2–5 coelacanths were accidentally caught each year from Grand Comoro, making up about 1% of its population. Between 1991 and 1994, there was an estimated 30% total population reduction of the coelacanth.
In 1998, the total population of the West Indian Ocean coelacanth was estimated to have been 500 or fewer, a number that would threaten the survival of the species. L. Chalumnae is listed as critically endangered by IUCN.
CITES lists this taxon on Appendix I. Confirm the current appendix on the CITES checklist.
West Indian Ocean coelacanth is Critically Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on West Indian Ocean coelacanth, Wikidata item Q668921. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
