TRIASSIC FISHES FROM SPITZBERGEN 
45 
different families, cHolopthychih, « Dip ter ini homocercn, and iDipterini heteroCercn. It is 
also obvious that G'iebel had a certain feeling of the close mutual relationship between 
Coelacanthus, Undina and Macropoma, in as much as these three, together with Cteno- 
lepis and Gyrosteus, are the only genera that are brought together in his * Dip ter ini 
homocercn . The genus Libys, founded by Munster (1842, p. 45), as to whose relations 
Munster himself felt uncertain, is placed by Giebel (1848, p. 209) hesitatingly among 
the representatives of his «Monostichin. In 1852 Quenstedt (1852, p.219, pp. 228 — 23 1) 
places Macropoma among his <Ganoidae homocercn, while the other «Coelacanthes», to 
which, curiously enough, he also seems to assign Saurichthys, is referred in his appendix 
to the ganoids. 
The first who really strongly emphasizes the mutual relationship between Coela¬ 
canthus, Undina and Macropoma is, however, Thioliere 1858 (pp. 782—-793). He also 
points out how these three genera form together a natural family, for which he suggests 
the name «Ortho-coelacanthes». Together with Huxley, who, three years later (1861), 
in revising the classification of the Devonian fishes, arrived at a similar result, he 
may therefore be looked upon as the founder of the family Coelacanthidae in its modern 
signification. In addition Reis (1888, 1892) and Woodward (1891b, 1898 a, b; 1907a, 
1908 b; 1909; 1910 b) especially have made important contributions to our knowledge of 
•the anatomy and classification of the Coelacanthidae. Besides these authors Gunther 
(1871, 1880), Heinecke (1907), Schmalhaussen (1913), Wellburn (1902) and Zittel (1887) 
deserve mention. 
The differentiation of the various genera of the family Coelacanthidae seems in 
many cases to have caused rather great difficulty. Thus in 1866 Huxley (p. 16) feels 
rather uncertain as to the difference between Coelacanthus and Undina, and in 1869 
Willemoes-Suhm (1869, p. 86) gives Undina and Graphiurus Kner as synonyms of Coela¬ 
canthus, while Holophagus Egerton and Macropoma are considered as distinct and 
independent genera. With regard to the relation between Diplurus Newberry on the 
one hand and Coelacanthus, Holophagus and Macropoma on the other, Newberry in 1888 
(p. 71) makes the remark that if all these genera occurred in the same geological 
formation we should hardly be justified,, with our present knowledge, in regarding them 
as more widely separated than different species of the same genus, a view which was 
put forward by Lutken already in 1868 (p. 61). Zittel in his «Handbuch» (1887, 
pp. 171—176) retains the genera Coelacanthus, Diplurus, Graphiurus, Heptanema Belotti, 
Undina, Holophagus, Libys, Coccoderma Quenstedt and Macropoma, and at the same time 
he gives a short and clear definition of these. Reis (1888, p. 5, pp. 68—73) in his 
monograph on the Coelacanthids of the white Jurassic, published in 1888, also maintains 
the same genera as Zittel, but with the difference that he restricts the generic name 
Coelacanthus principally to the Permian forms, while for the great majority of the 
Carboniferous ones he introduces the new generic name Rhabdoderma I ). 
Woodward, on the other hand, adopts in 1891 (1891b, pp. 394—423) a point of 
view partly different from that of Reis. He incorporates Holophagus with Undina, but 
does not accept Rhabdoderma. He considers that Graphiurus, Diplurus and Coccoderma 
J ) Among the genus Coelacanthus Reis (1888, p. 5, p. 71) also placed one Carboniferous species, C. elongatus 
Huxley (cf. Woodward, 1891b, p.406). 
