The Fish Scientists Thought Was Extinct for 66 Million Years

Scientists thought coelacanths vanished 66 million years ago, until a living one was caught in a fishing net in 1938.

Biology

Details

Coelacanths are a group of lobe-finned fish with a fossil record stretching back hundreds of millions of years. Their unusual fleshy fins and other features make them especially interesting to evolutionary scientists. By the time the last known coelacanth fossils were about 66 million years old, scientists believed the group had disappeared. Then in 1938, a strange blue fish caught in a trawling net off South Africa was identified as a living coelacanth, turning it into one of the most famous examples of a so-called living fossil. The modern fish are not the same species as the ancient fossil animals, but they retain a number of distinctive features from the broader lineage. A second living species was later identified in Indonesia. Modern coelacanths live in deep water and are difficult to study, which helps explain why such an unusual animal could remain poorly known to science for so long.

More videos

Up nextThe Bacteria That Can Double in Under 10 Minutes