Datasets and R scripts used in the publication « New scale analyses reveal centenarian coelacanths Latimeria chalumnae”. Datasets include catch information (identifier, catch year and month), biometric (total length, sex, weight) and ageing (circuli and macro-circuli numbers and corresponding marginal increments) data for the 27 coelacanth specimens used in this study, the extraction of Von Bertalanffy growth parameters (rate coefficient and asymptotic total length) and of life-history traits (age at maturity, maximum longevity, spawning frequency) in marine fish from Fishbase (June 2020). R scripts describe (i) the marginal increment analysis, i.e. the analysis of the periodicity of circuli and macro-circuli formation, on the African coelacanth scales to validate ageing based on circuli, (ii) the body growth patterns of the African coelacanth according to the different ageing hypotheses and the fitting of the Von Bertalanffy, Gompertz and logistic growth models to the corresponding length-at-age data, (iii) the comparison of the African coelacanth’s growth characteristics obtained with other marine fish through auximetric analysis and (iv) the location the African coelacanth along the slow-fast life-history continuum in marine fish.