An almost complete specimen of a juvenile coelacanth, measuring 70 mm total length, from the Aptian age Nova Olinda Member of the Crato Formation (Araripe Basin, Brazil), is here recorded and referred to the genus Axelrodichthys. This is the first record of a Coelacanthidae in this Cretaceous geological formation. Although the presence of a juvenile Axelrodichthys does not elucidate the reproductive strategy in this taxon, its small size, when compared to the very large embryos of Latimeria (300 mm), suggests a disparity between these large coelacanth genera, whose adults grow up to over one metre.