<p>Although lutjanid snappers are widely distributed and diverse marine fishes living in tropical America (the Central Western Atlantic and Central Eastern Pacific), no fossil skeletons of Lutjanidae are reported from the Neogene. Here we describe the first specimens of Lutjanidae from the Chagres Sandstone Member of the late Miocene Chagres Formation, located on the Panamanian Caribbean coast. The skull and the postcranial bones of the specimen indicate that it represents an undescribed species of the genus <i>Etelis</i>. The new taxon is characterized by a moderately deep skull with dorsal surface slanted 29 ͦ relative to the horizontal axis, a large orbit, an opercle with a distal margin forming a wide spine, a posterior margin of the preopercle that is serrated without prominent spines, premaxilla and dentary with a single row of dental alveoli. The mouth is slightly oblique, and the body is elongate and slender. The dorsal fin aligns with the pectoral fins, while the pelvic fin is short and does not reach the anal fin. Oceanic water interchange and species dispersal associated with marine currents flowing eastward through the Central American Seaway appear to have driven the diversification of the American Lutjanidae prior to the complete closure of the Panama Isthmus. The palaeoceanographic changes driven by this geological event triggered a faunal turnover that shaped the extant marine diversity in the Caribbean. The newly described lutjanid is associated to a markedly bathyal (200–500&#xa0;m) archipelagic and interoceanic seaway strait in central Panama (the Last Interoceanic Central American Deep Strait, LICADS).</p><p>ZooBank LSI: urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:30823570-21C4-4685-AFCF-C1C916577ABC</p>