ad info

CNN.com
 MAIN PAGE
 WORLD
 ASIANOW
 U.S.
 LOCAL
 POLITICS
 WEATHER
 BUSINESS
 SPORTS
 TECHNOLOGY
   computing
   personal technology
   space
 NATURE
 ENTERTAINMENT
 BOOKS
 TRAVEL
 FOOD
 HEALTH
 STYLE
 IN-DEPTH

 custom news
 Headline News brief
 daily almanac
 CNN networks
 CNN programs
 on-air transcripts
 news quiz

  CNN WEB SITES:
CNN Websites
 TIME INC. SITES:
 MORE SERVICES:
 video on demand
 video archive
 audio on demand
 news email services
 free email accounts
 desktop headlines
 pointcast
 pagenet

 DISCUSSION:
 message boards
 chat
 feedback

 SITE GUIDES:
 help
 contents
 search

 FASTER ACCESS:
 europe
 japan

 WEB SERVICES:
Tech

New sighting of 'living fossil' intrigues scientists

Coelacanth
A coelacanth  
RELATED VIDEO
CNN's Don Knapp reports on the exploits of this ancient aquatic dweller
Windows Media 28K 56K
September 23, 1998
Web posted at: 11:40 p.m. EDT (2340 GMT)

From Correspondent Don Knapp

SAN FRANCISCO (CNN) -- An ugly fish known as the "living fossil" has made another appearance in the ocean, surprising scientists.

A coelacanth has been found in Indonesia -- 7,000 miles (11,200 kilometers) from its only previously known location near Madagascar.

The ancestors of the coelacanth (pronounced SEE-la-kanth) date back 400 million years. Until 1938, scientists knew the coelacanth only as a fossilized relic from the dinosaur era.

"So in 1938, it was almost a shock when one showed up, that you get this, what's called a living fossil basically, this fish that's known only from the fossil record and here it is, some 80 million years later, you get a live one," said Douglas Long of the California Academy of Science.

coelacanth displayed
The second coelacanth known is exhibited in 1952  

A fisherman pulled the first-known modern coelacanth from the waters near the Comoros Islands near Madagascar. South African biologist Marjorie Courtenay Latimer came across it in a fish market.

History repeated itself in the latest discovery. University of California-Berkeley biologist Mark Erdmann was in Indonesia on his honeymoon when he visited a fish market in Manada, Sulawesi, to look for manta shrimp, the animal he studies.

"His wife pointed out a large, ugly fish going by on a hand cart, which he looked at and immediately recognized as a coelacanth," said Roy Caldwell, a biologist at UC-Berkeley.

fin
The fleshy fins of the coelacanth earned it the nickname of 'fourlegs'  

Caldwell said the coelacanths recently found in Indonesia apparently live in the same type of environment as those found in the Comoros, caves about 600 feet (18 meters) deep along the steep sides of underwater volcanoes.

One reason for the coelacanth's ancient popularity was its fleshy fins that reminded people of human limbs, Caldwell said. Those fins led to speculation that the fish were direct ancestors of land vertebrates.

The fish did not turn out to be the ancestor of humans, but did manage to outlive the dinosaurs.


Latest Headlines

Today on CNN

Related sites:

Note: Pages will open in a new browser window

External sites are not
endorsed by CNN Interactive.

SEARCH CNN.com
Enter keyword(s)   go    help

  
 

Back to the top
© 2000 Cable News Network. All Rights Reserved.
Terms under which this service is provided to you.
Read our privacy guidelines.