African Coelacanth

Though unknown to the West, the South African natives knew about the fish and called it "gombessa" or "mame."  It was given the name Latimeria after Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer, a South African museum official curator at East London's small museum.

African Coelacanth exhibits a deep royal blue color with spots used as a camouflage tactic for hunting prey, including the light blue fins and blue eyes. Similar anatomical adaptations include the abundance of visual cells, such as rods, to help see when light is limited. This, combined with the West Indian Ocean coelacanth's large eyes, aids in seeing in dark water. But this color is lost when the fish is caught, and it turns into chocolatey skin.

Some individuals have been seen performing "headstands" as feeding behaviors, allowing coelacanths to slurp prey from crevices. This behavior is made possible due to the coelacanth's ability to move both its upper and lower jaws, which is a unique trait in extant vertebrates that have bone skeletons. Coelacanth's meat is actually bad for humans, as it contains oil, wax, urea, and other compounds that are hard to digest. This could cause diarrhea.

Coelacanths are opportunistic feeders, hunting cuttlefish, squid, snipe eels, small sharks, and other fish found in their deep reef and volcanic slope habitats. Coelacanths are also known to swim head down, backwards, or belly up to locate their prey, presumably using their rostral glands. No predator has ever been directly observed to consume a coelacanth, but it's been suggested that sharks or orcas may sometimes feed on it.

This research suggests the coelacanth must stay in cold, well-oxygenated water, or else its blood cannot absorb enough oxygen. Female coelacanths give birth to live young, called "pups," in groups of between five and 25 fry at a time; the pups are capable of surviving on their own immediately after birth. Their reproductive behaviors are not well known, but it is believed that they are not sexually mature until after 20 years of age. It was thought that gestation time was 13 to 15 months.

Coelacanths are generic fish, plain and simple. Harmless, they will lazily swim around until provoked. At that point, they will attempt to swim away. The same cave may house more than a dozen coelacanths; they don't seem to be hostile to one another.

African coelacanths tend to reside in underwater caves, which are most common at these depths. This may limit their maximum depth range, along with their lack of prey in Southeast Africa. This fish is widely but very sparsely distributed around the rim of the western Indian Ocean, from South Africa northward along the east African coast to Kenya, the Comoros, and Madagascar, seemingly occurring in small colonies.

• Movement Pattern: Not a Migrant

• Population Trend: Stable

• Population: ???

• Locomotion: Aquatic

• Habitat: All

• Earth: Comoros; Madagascar; South Africa

Coelacanth can be 'tamed' using Fish Trapper. While they can level, they do eat from the feeder.

First Discovering of Coelacanth

As he frequently did, he telephoned his friend, Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer, curator at East London Museum, to see if she wanted to look over the contents of the catch for anything interesting, and told her of the strange fish he had set aside for her. These two fishes are named after her who discovered the first specimen, Latimeria.

• Indonesian: Raja Laut Afrika

• French: Cœlacanthe Africain

• Spanish: Comorense; Celacanto de Africano

• German: Komoren-Quastenflosser

• Coming soon

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Indian_Ocean_coelacanth

• https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/11375/3274618

• https://www.fishbase.ca/summary/2063

• https://www.wired.com/2015/03/creature-feature-10-fun-facts-coelacanth/

• https://a-z-animals.com/animals/coelacanth/#:~:text=No%20predator%20has%20ever%20been,may%20sometimes%20feed%20on%20it.

• https://www.deviantart.com/ognimdo2002/art/Gombessa-874103671