A coelacanth coloring page. The fish is drawn side-on across the page: heavy overlapping scales, the fleshy lobed fins it is famous for, and the odd little extra lobe at the tip of the tail. There is plenty of texture to shade, but the outlines stay clear and easy to follow. Free to download and print as a PDF, with no registration. Use whatever medium you like.
🗣 Conversation Starters — for care activities and family time
Had you come across the coelacanth before? What about the phrase “living fossil”?
What do you make of an animal whose family has been around since long before the dinosaurs?
Have you ever watched footage of deep-sea creatures?
Do ancient sea creatures interest you?
Why is the coelacanth called a living fossil?
Coelacanths appear in the fossil record around 400 million years ago, and living ones still carry much the same broad body plan. The fossil trail then stops about 66 million years ago, so they were assumed to have died out alongside the dinosaurs — until a trawler’s catch off South Africa in 1938 turned out to be one, to the astonishment of the scientific world. “Living fossil” is a loose label, though: today’s coelacanth belongs to its own genus, Latimeria, and is not a prehistoric species swimming around unchanged.
Where do coelacanths live?
Two species are known: one around the Comoros, Madagascar and the East African coast, the other off Sulawesi in Indonesia. Both keep to deep water, roughly 150 to 400 metres, sheltering in caves during the day. Adults reach about 1.5 to 2 metres and some 90 kg. They are rare and hard to observe, and much of how they live is still unknown.
How is the coelacanth related to our own ancestors?
It is a lobe-finned fish — the branch of the family tree that land vertebrates came from — and its paired fins move in an alternating pattern that looks strikingly like walking. For decades it was cast as the closest living relative of the first animals to come ashore. Genetic work has since placed lungfish closer to us, but coelacanths remain one of only two lobe-finned lineages still alive, which keeps them central to the story.
