Evolutionary history of coelacanths

Lionel Cavin

Muséum d'histoire naturelle de la Ville de Genève, Suisse  lionel.cavin@ville-ge.ch

(Talk in English)

The fishing of living coelacanths (Latimeria) in the Indian Ocean was regarded as one of the major zoological discoveries of the XXth century. It was hoped that the morphological and ethological study of this sluggish fish would shed light on the fish – tetrapod transition. This talk will focus on another, less well-known aspect of the evolutionary history of the actinistians (the clade of coelacanths) with special emphasis on the Mesozoic fossil record of the group. We will address various issues such as the supposedly slow rate of morphological evolution of these fishes, the palaeobiogeographical signal of the clade and the validity of the more general concept of ‘living fossils’.

Lionel Cavin is the curator of the geology and paleontology department of the Natural History Museum of Geneva, Switzerland. His research deals mostly with the anatomy, phylogeny, biogeography and other aspects of the evolutionary history of Mesozoic bony fishes (Actinopterygii, Dipnoi and Actinistia). The fossil material under study concerns mostly material from Europe, North Africa and SE Asia.

Recent publications:

Cavin L., et al. (2015). Taxonomic Composition and Trophic Structure of the Continental Bony Fish Assemblage from the Early Late Cretaceous of Southeastern Morocco. PLoS ONE 10(5): e0125786.

Cavin, L. & Guinot, G. (2014). Coelacanths as “almost living fossils”. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 2:49. doi:10.3389/fevo.2014.00049.

Guinot, G. & Cavin, L. (2015) ‘Fish’ (Actinopterygii and Elasmobranchii) diversification patterns through deep time. Biological Review. doi: 10.1111/brv.12203