An unusual fish known from the fossil record and believed to go extinct 70+ million years ago was found by an amateur icthyologist in a 1930s fish market, leading to an all-out manhunt for a live coelacanth. This is the story of the fish’s heroes and a little about its villains (those who “discovered” its mythical medical properties leading to attempts to poach it like ivory). An excellent history if a bit dated. ( )

The story of this fish is just amazing. The coelacanth, closest fish relative to tetrapods (ancestors of all reptiles, amphibians and mammals) was thought to be extinct for over three hundred million years until one day in 1938 when a fisherman in southern Africa offered part of his catch to a local museum curator- including a large and very strange fish. She was unable to properly preserve the specimen, so soon hoped to find another- it didn't happen for thirty years- but then when rewards were offered, fisherman began pulling coelacanths out of the sea rather regularly (considering how long they'd been so hidden). This narrative describes the scramble of scientists and museums to get their hands on coelacanth specimens, and the struggles to procure a live one- even though the fish has an oil-filled organ in lieu of a swim bladder (so it doesn't suffer from decompression when brought up from the great depths where it lives) yet all the coelacanths caught and brought to the surface soon died from the stress and other factors. It was rather stunning to read the description of the first person who built a submersible and was able to dive deep enough to view the coelacanths in their habitat- and find out where they were actually living. There are two known extant populations- one off the Comoros Islands near Madagascar and the other off the coast of Indonesia. (They have different colors- the African coelacanth is dark blue with white markings, and the Indonesian one is brown speckled with gold). When the ancient fish was first discovered the scramble was to procure specimens for study, but then people realized it had a low reproduction rate - giving live birth in small numbers compared to oviparous fishes- and they switched tactics to make fisherman release any coelacanth caught instead of rewarding them for bringing them in. I looked it up and there are still the only the two known populations so it's very rare. Makes you wonder what else is out there, lurking in caves under the ocean, that we don't know about!

The book is pretty engaging, but was a lot about the people involved in the discovery, including political squabbles over who had rights to the first coelacanth specimens- rather than details about the fish itself. I would really like to read some of the firsthand accounts or more about the physiology of the living coelacanth, but this was a really good introduction to the species and its wonders.

from the Dogear Diary ( )

Apart from sharks, I had never thought of any fish as “charismatic” but what else would you call a five-foot long fish with steel-blue scales, luminescent green eyes, and limb-like fins that frequently does headstands when submersibles approach?

Coelacanths (seel-a-kanths) swam in Panthalassa and watched the dinosaurs rise and fall. In fact, their fossil record goes back 400 million years. However, they vanished from the fossil record around the same time the dinosaurs did and were presumed extinct. That belief didn’t change until 1938, when Marjorie Courtney-Latimer, the curator of a small museum in South Africa, found a coelacanth in the haul of a fishing boat. She made heroic efforts to preserve it, and it became the type specimen for the species, which was named in her honor (Latimeria chulumnae). But a second specimen was desperately needed, not least because it had not been possible to preserve the internal organs of the first fish. The race to find more coelacanths was on, and this book details the search for more coelacanths and describes many of their unique biological features. There are two extant species, one that lives off the coast of eastern Africa and one that lives in Indonesia, and it is thought there may be a third species living off the coast of Central America.

One of the things about the book that I especially liked was that it included so many first-hand descriptions of peoples’ first impressions of the coelacanths they saw (all in layman’s terms), because they helped give insight into why the fish fired so many peoples’ imaginations, to the extent they were willing to travel to remote, exotic places and build their own submersibles to see it. And to write books dedicated to it. I loved that the author included her own first impression when she viewed a museum specimen for the first time, “It was unlike any fish I had seen before – its body was covered in scaly armor and its fins were attached by fat limb-like protuberances. It had large, yellowy green eyes, and a surprisingly gentle expression on its prehistoric face.”

More descriptions helped suck me in. Marjorie Courtney-Latimer’s first impression was also included, “[it was] the most beautiful fish I had ever seen. It was five feet long, a pale mauvy blue with faint flecks of whitish spots; it had an iridescent silver-blue-gray sheen all over…it was such a beautiful fish – more like a big china ornament.” A description from a scientist in Indonesia effectively captured the magic of encountering a living one in the wild, “It was magnificent, each scale appeared to be flecked in gold. I touched it and it was very soft: I could put my arms around it and squeeze, and it was more like holding a baby with soft, young flesh, than a big, hard fish. The thing that captivated me most was its eyes. They were large and in certain lights were a luminescent, almost alien green, and they kept looking at me.”

Including the descriptions was very effective and made me want to see one for myself. The author seemed to anticipate this reaction, as she helpfully included an appendix with a worldwide list of museums with coelacanth specimens. More technical details on the coelacanth’s anatomy and DNA were consolidated and placed in a second appendix so the curious could learn more without the flow of the narrative being unnecessarily interrupted. As a biologist, this section appealed to me, but you can get a very good introduction to the coelacanth even without reading it. There is also a “Selected Reading” section, which provides citations to all the scientific papers detailing research on the coelacanth (including the original papers in Nature describing the “new” species).

I first found out about this book while I was reading Richard Fortey’s [b:Horseshoe Crabs and Velvet Worms: The Story of the Animals and Plants That Time Has Left Behind|12627411|Horseshoe Crabs and Velvet Worms The Story of the Animals and Plants That Time Has Left Behind|Richard Fortey|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1333576387s/12627411.jpg|17681671] and became especially curious when Fortey said coelacanths could be considered living fossils as well, but that as a matter of principle he would not discuss species he could not personally encounter when they were alive. I’m glad he at least mentioned them and gave pointers as to where more information could be found.
( )

Apart from sharks, I had never thought of any fish as “charismatic” but what else would you call a five-foot long fish with steel-blue scales, luminescent green eyes, and limb-like fins that frequently does headstands when submersibles approach?

Coelacanths (seel-a-kanths) swam in Panthalassa and watched the dinosaurs rise and fall. In fact, their fossil record goes back 400 million years. However, they vanished from the fossil record around the same time the dinosaurs did and were presumed extinct. That belief didn’t change until 1938, when Marjorie Courtney-Latimer, the curator of a small museum in South Africa, found a coelacanth in the haul of a fishing boat. She made heroic efforts to preserve it, and it became the type specimen for the species, which was named in her honor (Latimeria chulumnae). But a second specimen was desperately needed, not least because it had not been possible to preserve the internal organs of the first fish. The race to find more coelacanths was on, and this book details the search for more coelacanths and describes many of their unique biological features. There are two extant species, one that lives off the coast of eastern Africa and one that lives in Indonesia, and it is thought there may be a third species living off the coast of Central America.

One of the things about the book that I especially liked was that it included so many first-hand descriptions of peoples’ first impressions of the coelacanths they saw (all in layman’s terms), because they helped give insight into why the fish fired so many peoples’ imaginations, to the extent they were willing to travel to remote, exotic places and build their own submersibles to see it. And to write books dedicated to it. I loved that the author included her own first impression when she viewed a museum specimen for the first time, “It was unlike any fish I had seen before – its body was covered in scaly armor and its fins were attached by fat limb-like protuberances. It had large, yellowy green eyes, and a surprisingly gentle expression on its prehistoric face.”

More descriptions helped suck me in. Marjorie Courtney-Latimer’s first impression was also included, “[it was] the most beautiful fish I had ever seen. It was five feet long, a pale mauvy blue with faint flecks of whitish spots; it had an iridescent silver-blue-gray sheen all over…it was such a beautiful fish – more like a big china ornament.” A description from a scientist in Indonesia effectively captured the magic of encountering a living one in the wild, “It was magnificent, each scale appeared to be flecked in gold. I touched it and it was very soft: I could put my arms around it and squeeze, and it was more like holding a baby with soft, young flesh, than a big, hard fish. The thing that captivated me most was its eyes. They were large and in certain lights were a luminescent, almost alien green, and they kept looking at me.”

Including the descriptions was very effective and made me want to see one for myself. The author seemed to anticipate this reaction, as she helpfully included an appendix with a worldwide list of museums with coelacanth specimens. More technical details on the coelacanth’s anatomy and DNA were consolidated and placed in a second appendix so the curious could learn more without the flow of the narrative being unnecessarily interrupted. As a biologist, this section appealed to me, but you can get a very good introduction to the coelacanth even without reading it. There is also a “Selected Reading” section, which provides citations to all the scientific papers detailing research on the coelacanth (including the original papers in Nature describing the “new” species).

I first found out about this book while I was reading Richard Fortey’s [b:Horseshoe Crabs and Velvet Worms: The Story of the Animals and Plants That Time Has Left Behind|12627411|Horseshoe Crabs and Velvet Worms The Story of the Animals and Plants That Time Has Left Behind|Richard Fortey|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1333576387s/12627411.jpg|17681671] and became especially curious when Fortey said coelacanths could be considered living fossils as well, but that as a matter of principle he would not discuss species he could not personally encounter when they were alive. I’m glad he at least mentioned them and gave pointers as to where more information could be found.
( )

A Fish Caught in Time is sort of a social history of the coelacanth. Author Samantha Weinburg is not a paleontologist or ichthyologist, so there’s not too much about coelacanth morphology or taxonomy or biology or ecology; instead we get biographies of the people involved in the coelacanth story:


Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer, the self-taught curator at the small all-purpose (natural history, local history, assorted junk) museum in East London, South Africa. Ms. Courtenay-Latimer had befriended a local fishing boat captain who brought her anything interesting he trawled up. One day in 1938 that was a six-foot fish with unusual fins and scales. Once, when Ms. C-L was caught daydreaming in school during a lecture on paleontology, the teacher made her write “a ganoid fish is a fossil fish” twenty-five times; thus, she knew a ganoid scale when she saw one. Alas, she couldn’t find anybody local who knew anything about it, her calls and letters to the local universities went temporarily unanswered, and there wasn’t enough formalin in East London to preserve her catch, and it was starting to go bad – so she took it to the local taxidermist.


J.L.B. Smith, a chemistry professor and amateur ichthyologist at Rhodes University, who was the recipient of one of Latimer’s letters – which included a drawing. The drawing kindled a faint memory of something he’d once seen in a textbook. He couldn’t believe his own memory and kept having doubts, but he wired Latimer and told her to keep the fish until he could get to it. It took him months to finish his exam grading and arrange a temporary leave, but he and Mrs. Smith eventually turned up at the little East London Museum – and there on the examining table was a coelacanth. Smith went on to publish an exhaustive description in Nature, naming the fish Latimeria chalumnae. The he went looking for another one – which didn’t turn up until 1952, and in the Comoros, caught by a native fisherman and identified by a local trader who recognized it from Smith’s reward posters and wired him. In a display of determination mixed with chutzpah, Smith called up the Prime Minister of South Africa and asked to borrow an air force plane to fly to the Comoros. The Prime Minister was a fundamentalist – it was illegal to teach evolution in South Africa until the 1990s – but had happened to bring one of Smith’s books on ocean fish with him for light reading at his vacation home. He called up the minister of defense and Smith was quickly on his way to the Comoros in a Dakota.


The Comoros were French territory, but the local officials apparently didn’t quite get the importance of the second coelacanth, and allowed Smith to load it up and fly away with it. The aircrew were practical jokers and announced that a squadron of French fighters had been scrambled to intercept them and force them back. Smith said he’d go down with the plane rather than give up his coelacanth.


The French were still pretty annoyed, and kept the Comoros off limits to all foreign ichthyologists. More coelacanths turned up, and finally the ban was lifted. When the Comoros became independent in the 1970s, the coelacanth was pictured on the countries stamps and currency, and (despite being listed as an endangered species) coelancanths were caught and sold to anyone who could pay for them.


Hans Fricke, an East German escapee with a mechanical bent, became fascinated by coelacanths and built his own submarine to go looking for them, resulting in a lot of information about the creature’s life habits. During the day, they rest in caves in small groups; at night they hunt with ultra-sensitive eyes and a curious electro-sensitive organ in their snouts. Videos show coelacanths moving like no other fish – their paddling fins allow them to swim in any position, and they are just as likely to be moving upside down or standing on their heads as in a more fishlike fashion.


A second species of coelacanth was found in a fish market in Indonesia by a pair of honeymooning marine biologists in 1997, and more were found offshore. There are now about 200-300 specimens in museums around the world (no aquarium has a live one, but the Japanese keep trying). Coelacanth oil has become part of Chinese medicine, apparently going for $1000 or more for a cubic centimeter. It’s supposed to give long life. (Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer died in 2004 at 97).


One more tantalizing item: two silver coelacanth models have turned up in Spain; experts say they are apparently Mesoamerican. There thus may be another population of our distant relatives lurking in the Caribbean somewhere.


Entertaining and a quick read, even if not technical – the bibliography references the detailed treatises. All the people referenced are quirky and interesting, and the chain of coincidences that resulted in the first few coelacanths are intriguing. ( )