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Have you ever heard of the Coelacanth (see-la-kanth)? The Coelacanth is known as the 'living fossil’ because it was once thought to be extinct. The Coelacanth is a fish, and it is more than 410 million years old. From studying fossils and living fish, scientists can tell that the species has changed very little in all that time.
The Coelacanth was rediscovered in 1938 in the warm, coastal waters of the Indian Ocean. This is the way it happened: A museum curator was in the habit of once a week looking over a local fisherman's catch to check out any interesting specimens. She found an intriguing five-foot-long, blue spotted fish and took it back to the museum with her. The curator wasn't familiar with the bizarre fish, and she wanted to find out more about it.
She looked through several encyclopedias and made an astonishing discovery. Her fish bore a remarkable resemblance to a prehistoric fish! She sent a sketch and a description to a local chemistry professor with a well-known passion for fish.
It didn't take the excited professor long to identify the Coelacanth, and reporters soon flocked to the museum to get the story. Unfortunately, the Coelacanth hadn't been preserved properly, and there was no specimen to study. Scientists around the globe were still extremely excited. The entire world caught 'Coelacanth fever'.
Fourteen years went by before anybody saw the Coelacanth again. This time, a visiting fisherman pulled it in off the coast of Madagascar. The local fishermen there are very familiar with the Coelacanth. They told scientists that they catch it in their nets all the time.
In 1998, a vacationer caught two more specimens off the coast of Indonesia. These Coelacanths were brown instead of blue.
The Coelacanth is one of the most significant finds of the twentieth century. Some scientists even think it is a cousin to the fish that grew legs and came ashore. That would make the Coelacanth related to humans.
Coelacanth can grow up to five feet long, and can weigh up to 150 pounds. Fully-grown males are smaller than females, and they range in color from blue to brown. They have distinctive white flecks all over them, and scientists can even recognize and identify individual fish by using the flecks as a 'map'.
The backbone of the Coelacanth is not really even a 'bone'. It is a fluid-filled tube made of cartilage. The Coelacanth’s hollow fin spines are what got the fish its name; Coelacanth literally means 'hollow spine'.
It has a peculiar, tri-lobed tail, and this makes Coelacanth fossils easy to recognize. It also helps to easily identify living specimens.
Have you ever seen an old black-and-white horror movie from the 1950's called The Creature from the Black Lagoon? Some people believe that the creature in the movie was patterned after the Coelacanth. The creature looks very familiar, and the second Coelacanth was discovered in 1952, just before work on the movie began. The movie was released in 1954. Watch the movie, and you decide!
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