Coelacanth

Fact file

Name: Coelacanth [see-lah-kanth]
Status: Critically endangered, once thought to be extinct

Habitat: Deep water caves around islands off the coasts of Africa and Indonesia.

Description: The coelacanth is a bony fish with a lobed tail and lobed fins that gives birth to live young. It is usually a bright blue, but this colour is lost when the fish is caught. You can see a model of the coelacanth on display in the Museum.

What is the story of the coelacanth? For a very long time people thought that the coelacanth was extinct because many coelacanth fossils were found, but no live fish.

The fossils showed that the coelacanth had been around over 400 million years ago - long before the dinosaurs had evolved. However, in 1938 a live coelacanth was caught off the south-east coast of Africa! Since then it has been caught regularly around the Comoros Islands near Africa, and has also been found in Indonesia.

The coelacanth is a shy fish that lives in deep water and is not usually disturbed by regular fishing. But now, as people catch the coelacanth more frequently, there is a concern that it may be endangered. It would be a shame to lose something we have only just re-discovered.

This is a photograph of the coelacanth model on display in the Museum. The model is quite accurate, the coelacanth is bright blue in real life.

When the coelacanth was first rediscovered, scientists were amazed - they had thought it had been extinct for millions of years. Rewards were given for more fish to be caught, and many museums wanted a specimen of their own. Scientists began to worry that the coelacanth was being overfished - they didn't want to lose the fish they had just found.

This is a photograph of the coelacanth model on display in the Museum. Very few people have seen a living coelacanth, but it has been described as a very beautiful fish - about a metre long and bright blue in colour.

All coelacanths have a lobed tail and stout, lobed fins. It was these fins that made people think that the coelacanth could be similar to the fish that first crawled on to land millions of years ago. Scientists now think that this is not the case, but the coelacanth is still known as 'old four legs'!

The coelacanth was first caught around the Comoros Islands off the coast of Africa. The Comoros is a group of three small islands and its capital is the city of Moroni. The coelacanth is an important symbol of the Comoros, and is featured on the country's stamps and coins.

Coelacanths are still found in the Comoros and have also been found in Indonesia, hundreds of miles away, on the other side of the Indian Ocean. These coelacanths are a browny colour, different to the blue fish found in the Comoros.

Coelacanths have been around for millions of years and they haven't really changed much. This is a photograph of the tail section of a fossil coelacanth on display in the Museum. It was found at a famous site called Solnhofen in Germany and is about 150 million years old.

All coelacanths have lobed fins and a lobed tail. Can you see this in the fossil?

Coelacanth

Fact file

See our collections of images and photographs tracing the history of the Coelacanth