Fishing for Fossils

The coelacanth is a fish with a tumultuous history. Dubbed living fossils, they were thought to have gone extinct along with the dinosaurs around 65 million years ago, when one was caught by a South African fishing vessel in 1938. The scientific name of this magnificent species is Latimeria chalumnae, named after its discoverer, Miss Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer, and the river Chalumna where it was caught. Miss Courtenay-Latimer did not initially have the faintest idea about how valuable the find was, only that it was unlike any other fish she had seen. Rejected from morgues and cold-storage facilities, she had to turn to taxidermy for preservation. Renowned ichthyologist Professor J.L.B. Smith finally confirmed its identity as a coelacanth.

These fishes have a peculiar capability of increasing the size of their gape by moving the face upward independent of the skull, due to a distinctive intracranial joint - these are the only known vertebrates with this skill. The discovery of the second species is also no less surprising, these fish seem to be magnets for tales worth telling. In 1998, marine biologist Dr. Mark Erdmann was on his honeymoon in Indonesia, when his wife Arnaz spotted a peculiar specimen being wheeled about in the fish market, with stumpy appendages instead of fins. Believing the incident too fortuitous to be likely, they did not pursue it any further. Only later would they return with the specific purpose of finding another coelacanth. There might be plenty of fish in the sea, but these are definitely a rare catch!