The captain would often keep unusual fish, even if they would not sell to be eaten, for the local museum curator. This day she was at the dock.
Margaret Courtenay-Latimer, the museum curator of the East London Museum, saw a particularly unusual fish. She “recognized” the fish as something special and collected it. The blue scales particularly, first caught her eye.
She had a few task a head of her:
First, the fish was large, and she needed to transport it.
Second, the fish was large, and she had little to preserve it.
Third, what now.
She managed the first, attempted the second, and for the third she sent a note with a drawing to James Leonard Brierly Smith, a chemist and fish enthusiast (Rhodes College in Grahamstown (now Makanda), who, turned into less of a chemist and instead became an ichthyologist extraordinaire as time went on.
Smith recognized the fish, from Courtney-Latimer’s drawing, as a coelacanth.
Smith, too busy and far away, managed to get down to see what was left after many weeks. Travel across Africa in the 1930s was not easy. Today this trip would take about 2 hours by car.
Due to the lack of refrigeration and access to few chemical for preservation, the fish was stuffed. The skin and scales were saved.
JLB Smith named it Latimeria Chalumnae, for Courtnery-Latimer and the Chalumnae River (in the local language its called the Tyolomnqa) near where it was found.
The word coelacanth is due to the hollow fin rays, named by Louis Agassiz in 1839, from fossils of course. (Coel = Greek for hollow)
Smith then set about to find another. He recounts this tale in his book The Search Beneath the Sea. He writes well and though he can go off on little wordy tangents the book is a good read, be wary, however, perhaps due to him being a man of his time, the racist views of “native” fisherman and the ideas that class matters are pervasive.
Smith set about putting up posters, searching, and questioning fisherman when possible along the coast. 3000 km of coast.
“ It is a jungle covered peninsula with a lighthouse on its northern tip. The reef is enormous, at least five miles by eight….sheltering fishes of all kinds. It was a hard life, supplies were difficult, water is very scarce, it is hot and we were plagued by packs of man-eating lions that terrorized the area. Almost every night they tore open the native flimsy huts and savagely choke their last frenzied screams.”
Finally.
Years after the first finding, a coelacanth was found and word gotten to Smith.
What/how things transpired are not certain: Some details are sketchy and several stories exists:
One is Eric Hunt captain of the schooner carrying Affane Mohamed (traveling with the soccer team he was on) caught the fish. The Captain had seen one of JLB Smith’s posters.
Another: It was caught by Ahmed Hussein, a fisherman, who sold all his catch, except that one, at the market. At the market Affane Mohamed, head of the primary school, recognized it as important and got them to bring it to Eric Hunt. However, Mohamed knew about the fish and thus there should have been no need for Hunt.
The tale related by Smith: A fisherman caught it (Ahmed Hussein as above) and due to the notices knew of the $ involved. He and others carried it overland to Hunt. It was a 90 lb fish. Hunt salted it, and then when he got some formalin, injected it with the preservative.
At any rate Eric Hunt was given the reward money, and perhaps he even shared it.
It was caught near the Comoro Islands, and the fisherman there knew it well enough to have a name for it, Gombessa.
Once Smith got word of the fish he was in a race to get it. French Authorities had decided they wanted it, and they ruled the island at that time. Smith beat them to it, managing to procure a plane to get him to the island. It was a mangled specimen, having lost several fins.
After this, French Officials decided only French scientist could work on it. And that is what transpired over the next 14 years or so. The french did detailed anatomical studies on the20-30 specimens that were caught by 1965.
In 1965 the Comoro Island ministry opened up access and started selling specimens. Here is an odd thing; up until this point French scientists had worked on formalin preserved specimens. Kieth Stewart Thompson, Assistant Professor of Biology and Curator of the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale, asked them to send him one but he wanted it frozen. It cost $400 which was quite a bit at that time. In 1966 a group of scientists and graduate students gathered for the thawing to collect samples, among them were several chemist and physiologists. This was the reason Thompson wanted a frozen specimen.
From this thawing came several papers on its physiology:
Some big ones:
Its blood was like the shark - full of urea, synthesized by the liver.
(authors Grace Pickford and Grant and then Brown and Brown). This lead to hypotheses that it must be ovoviviparous (that is, has developing eggs inside itself) and gives birth to live young rather than lay eggs (Griffith and Thompson 1973). A few years later this was confirmed (Smith, Rand and Schaeffer 1976). The confirmation was from a museum specimen that had never been opened (American Museum of Natural History). This female fish had five advanced young inside.
1972: Backing up a little. An expedition to the Comoros (Royal Society British/French expedition) filmed 2 specimens swimming for the first time, not in their natural habitat but in the shallows.
FYI: Jacque Cousteau tried to get it on film earlier (1968) but didn’t manage it.
1986: Fricke and Hissman, filmed fish at depth via submersible in their natural habitat, 180 meters down.
The story continues:
In 1997 in a fish market in Indonesia a biologist sighted a coelacanth. The biologist was Mark Erdmann. He and co-author Moosa identify a coelacanth population off the coast of Indonesia. The species here was named Latimeria menadoernsis. They published this in 1998.
Some further notes:
Coelacanths have lobed fins, that is, bones extend into the fin. This includes an extra lobe on the tail, and paired lobed fins. They have an inter-cranial joint that allows them to move the front part of their head upwards, pretty unusual for fish.
Reproduction and growth: How many young do they produce at any one time? In 1991 a Female was caught with 26 young developing.inside. It is thought that they have a 5 year gestation period and reach sexual maturity at 55 years. They live until near 100 years old. These assessments are due to analysis of growth rings on the scales.
Status of these species: Rare? Endangered?
The African population, Latimeria chalumnae, is estimated to have about 400-500 individuals. The Indonesia population is doing better with perhaps 10,000 individuals. They are not a sought after fish for eating so the danger is when they are caught accidentally.
Sources and Further Reading
Erdmann, M.V., Caldwell, R.L., Moosa, M.K. 1998. Indonesian "King of the Sea" discovered. Nature 395.
Fricke, H.W. and K. Hissmann. 1990. Natural habitat of the coelacanth. Nature 346, 323-324.
Griffith R. W., and Thomson K. S. 1973. Latimeria Chalumnæ: Reproduction and Conservation. Nature 242: 617–618
Pickford G. E. and Grant F. B. 1967. Serum Osmolarity in the Coelacanth, Latimeria chalumnæ: Urea Retention and Ion Regulation. Science 155: 568–570.
Smith, JLB. 1956. The search beneath the sea. Henry Holt and Company.
Thompson, KS. 1992. Living fossil: The story of the coelacanth