Ngamugawi, a new coelacanth from Gogo Reef

[Halichoeres]

Meet Ngamugawi, whose head and a few adjacent bits have been found in one of the famous three-dimensional nodules of the wonderful Upper Devonian Gogo Formation. The wonderful preservation allowed the authors to fill in some gaps in the morphological evolution between the earliest coelacanths and more modern ones like the living gombessa.

Here's the noggin, both the fossil and the reconstruction (open in new tab to see in full):


And the full description (open access): https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-51238-4