The fossil dates from a period about 90 million years before the first dinosaurs appeared on Earth.
A living specimen was discovered off South Africa in 1938 – with the species being believed to have become extinct millions of years previously.
Describing the moment he made the discovery, Smith said he had been examining an ancient rock layer in the park when he cracked open a piece of shale.
“There’s a bed of freshwater mussels called Carbonicola at one level in the rock, and opening a piece of shale from this bed in my hands I saw something unusual – a distinctive skull bone of a large fish.
“I knew straight away this was something different and very rare.”
Experts said the Leeds coelacanth would have been fossilised during the Carboniferous period when Earth was much warmer and the immense supercontinent of Pangaea was forming.
