Earlier this year, I was watching a video on the Devonian Period and my brain suddenly wanted to know when the first kosher fish evolved.
This is actually an interesting question. Kosher fish have to have scales and fins. But, what is a fish scale and what is a fish fin? At what point in the past did armor plating turn into a scale? And are the limbs of early lobed fish considered fins?
"Fish which have fins and scales are kosher. Fish which only have fins are not kosher. Of the four types of scales, clenoid, cycloid, ganoid and placoid, only clenoid and cycloid scales are valid according to the Torah. Gandoid is the type found on sturgeon and placoid is found on shark. There is no prohibition against eating fish blood, other than the fact that people may think that a person is eating prohibited blood, and ritual slaughter is not required. The scales must be true scales that can be removed without damaging the skin of the fish. As it says in the Torah – “These you may grilled eat of the fishes, all that have fins and scales…” (Vayikrah XI:9-12) Bony tubercles and plate or thorn-like scales that can be removed only by removing part of the skin are not considered scales in this context. Some fish that have such scales, such as eels, lumpfish, shark, sturgeon, and swordfish, are not kosher."
Okay, so coelacanths are not kosher. Subject to making a time machine and testing how hard it is to remove a fish scale, it looks like the first kosher fish evolved around 350 million years ago.
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