West Indian Ocean Coelacanth

West Indian Ocean Coelacanth
Latimeria chalumnae

Coelacanths are quite different from all other living fishes. They have an extra lobe on the tail, paired lobed fins and a vertebral column that is not fully developed. They grow to about two metres in length and weigh up to 100 kilograms.

Coelacanths are known from the fossil record, dating back over 360 million years. They were believed to have become extinct about 80 million years ago. This changed when a fisherman caught a live coelacanth off the coast of South Africa in 1938. This find is considered one of the best zoological finds of the century.

The South African Coelacanth led to the discovery of the first documented population off the Comoros Islands, between Africa and Madagascar. More specimens have been recorded off Zanzibar and Tanzania. In 1998, a coelacanth was caught in Sulawesi, Indonesia, and described as a new species Latimeria menadoensis.

Distribution: east African coast from South Africa north to Kenya, the Comoros and Madagascar
Conservation status: Critically Endangered