Happy Ceolacanth Saturday!
Meet your watery great grandma!
Coelacanths are among the most primitive fish, originating hundreds of millions of years before the dinosaurs, during the Devonian Period, when they swam in great numbers over much of the Earth.
They average 5 feet (1.5 m) long, and weigh about 100 pounds (45 kg).
The highly mobile fins of these ancient fish are attached to fleshy limbs with a single bone, like arms. Lobe-finned fish eventually evolved into amphibians, reptiles, and eventually fully terrestrial animals.
Fish like these are our ancestors!
Coelacanths are slow-growing and long-lived: They become sexually mature between age 40 and 69, and can live to be 100 years old.
They are live-bearers who carry their young about five years before giving birth to well-developed young.
Fossil evidence had suggested ceolacanths went extinct 80 million years ago, until 1938 when a museum curator in South Africa found one in a pile of by-catch from local fishing boats.
Since then, populations have been identified in the West Indian Ocean, along the Eastern and Southern coasts of Africa, and in Indonesia. About 10,000 remain.
