2002.3 - COELACANTH

Evolutionarily this is one of the most important animals we know about. The fins on this fish are precursors to terrestrial animals’ limbs. It was quite a find when the first live coelacanth known to western science was pulled from the ocean off the east coast of South Africa in 1938. Since then, many others have been found. They are long lived, and can be more that six feet long. Unfortunately, as a slow-growing deep-sea fish, we risk driving it into extinction through over-fishing.