Coelacanth is not closest fishy relative of terrestrial animals

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.”