“…Although multiple coelacanths have been described from the same geological units dating to the early Mesozoic [ 17 ], our site-based approach confirms that three species spanning a large range of body sizes were living in the same lakes and waterways. At the same time, the anatomy of all three species at Firestone and Granton Quarry are remarkably similar,these species all show similar fusiform body plans and differ extensively only in the ornamentation of their opercles, number of foramina in their lower jaws, the size and number of their premaxillary teeth, the form of their scalation, and the form and counts of their fins [ 71 , 72 ] The observation of high size disparity coupled with low skeletal differentiation in the Lockatong coelacanth fauna supports the observation that the prevailing pattern in this clade is morphological conservatism [ 13 , 15 , 18 , 83 , 87 ],but see [ 17 ].…”