and also Palaeozic Invertebrates (and some “living fossils” as well)
http://entheo.livejournal.com/30569.html

So if you want some Coelacanth love (or mayby Johnny Coelacanth does) get a plush Coelacanth.
Now I hope this is ok and not considered against the Comment Guidelines.

So how does one celebrate “Coelacanth Day”?

Mmmmmm. Gout sticks! No wonder the beer batter met its match with fried coelacanth.

It wouldn’t instantly look identical to a dinosaur fossil, but you’d see the similarities pretty soon once you took it to bits.

Only it’s actually more interesting that that because it represents a line of primitive fish that diverged from every other vertebrate a very long time ago.

Look up Tuatara. I’ve patted one of the little buggers :D

“Oh Coelacanth, Oh Coelacanth
As lovely as a Rembrandt!

Your lumpy head so chitinous
Your ancient visage frightenous

Oh Coelacanth, Oh Coelacanth
Glad you’re not extinct, I Am!”

Happy holidays you Living Fossils. . .

beer battered, deep fried! Serve with mushy peas, chips and a pickle onion or two.

(actually pretty much any food can be improved by being battered and deep-fried)

I didn’t learn about the actual evolutionary processes of biology until an incredible “Introduction to Biological Anthropology” course in college. At the end of that class, I approached the professor and told him how amazing it was, and how much it had meant to me, and he surprised me by explaining that he had also been raised fundamentalist, and had accordingly been kept a similar distance from modern biology.

Fixed it for you. I’ve also heard anecdotally that coelacanths taste bad.

http://www.dinofish.com/resc.htm

And, to bring things up to speed, coelacanths from the past 65 million years *have* been found. The fossils come from Israel and Sweden. (The gap in the fossil record is now less than 23 million years!) Unfortunately they have not been extensively described and the references are hard to find, but those who want to know more can track down:

Goldsmith, N. F. & Yanai-Inbar, I. 1997. Coelacanthid in Israel’s Early Miocene? Latimeria tests Schaeffer’s theory. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 17 (supp. 3), 49A.

Ørvig, T. 1986. A vertebrate bone from the Swedish Paleocene. Geologiska Föreningens i Stockholm Förhandlingar 108, 139-141.

Coelecanths are emphatically NOT “diverged from every other vertebrate a very long time ago”. They’re actually interesting because they’re more closely related to tetrapods than they are to other fish.

You can see the relationship with a close look at the skeletal anatomy of the pectoral fins. While Actinopterigians (most fish you’ve heard of) have fins shaped like a fan, Sarcopterigians like coelecanths, lungfish, and tetrapods have a narrow base that branches further down the limb. In tetrapods that structure became the arm bones, branching into the wrist, hand, and finger bones.

If you want something that diverged from all other vertebrates a very long time ago, you want hagfish and lampreys.

Just now, clicking through an article about new fossils in China:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20101222/sc_livescience/cacheinchinesemountainreveals20000prehistoricfossils

They have to reference Big C as a ‘LF’. Oh well. . .Long Live The Coelacanth!