Coelacanth is not closest fishy relative of terrestrial animals

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/coelacanth-not-closest-fishy-relative-terrestrial-animals

Genes of “living fossil” do reveal changes needed to live on dry land

BY 

TINA HESMAN SAEY 

1:06PM, APRIL 17, 2013

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Lungs, not limbs, propelled the aquatic ancestor of land animals out of the ocean, according to a new analysis of the genome of the coelacanth, an ancient species of fish with limblike fins. Scientists have debated whether fish with lungs, such as lungfish, or fish like coelacanths were the so-called “fish that first crawled onto land.”

An international group of researchers has deciphered the genome of the African coelacanth, Latimeria chalumnae, (shown) and found that lungfishes are more closely related to land animals than coelacanths are.

PETER SCOONES/GETTY IMAGES