They are found along the coastlines of the Indian Ocean and Indonesia.[2][3] Since there are only two known species of coelacanth and both are threatened, it is one of the most endangered genera of animals in the world. The West Indian Ocean coelacanth is a critically endangered species.[4]
Biological characteristics
Live coelacanth off Pumula on the KwaZulu-Natal South Coast, South Africa, 2019Latimeria chalumnae specimen, Zoologisk Museum, Copenhagen
Based on growth rings in the creatures' ear bones (otoliths), scientists infer that individual coelacanths may live as long as 80 to 100 years. Coelacanths live as deep as 700m (2300ft) below sea level, but are more commonly found at depths of 90 to 200m (300 to 660ft).
Living examples of Latimeria chalumnae have a deep blue color which probably camouflages them from prey species; however, the Indonesian species (L.menadoensis) is brown.
Coelacanth eyes are very sensitive, and have a tapetum lucidum. Coelacanths are almost never caught in the daytime, but have been caught at all phases of the moon. Coelacanth eyes have many rods, receptors in the retina that help animals see in dim light. Together, the rods and tapetum help the fish see better in dark water.
Coelacanths are opportunistic feeders, hunting cuttlefish, squid, snipe eels, small sharks, and other fish found in their deep reef and volcanic slope habitats. Coelacanths are also known to swim head down, backwards or belly up to locate their prey, presumably using their rostral glands.
Scientists suspect that one reason this fish has been so successful is that specimens are able to slow down their metabolisms at will, sinking into the less-inhabited depths and minimizing their nutritional requirements in a sort of hibernation mode.
The coelacanths which live near Sodwana Bay, South Africa, rest in caves at depths of 90 to 150m (300 to 490ft) during daylight hours, but disperse and swim to depths as shallow as 55m (180ft) when hunting at night. The depth is not as important as their need for very dim light and, more importantly, for water which has a temperature of 14–22°C (57–72°F). They will rise or sink to find these conditions. The amount of oxygen their blood can absorb from the water through the gills is dependent on water temperature.
Scientific research suggests the coelacanth must stay in cold, well-oxygenated water or else its blood cannot absorb enough oxygen.[5] The fish seems to be very well adapted to its environment, which is seen as one of the reasons why it has the slowest evolving genome of all known vertebrates.[6]
Reproduction
Female coelacanths give birth to live young, called "pups", in groups of between five and 25 fry at a time; the pups are capable of surviving on their own immediately after birth. Their reproductive behaviors are not well known, but it is believed that they are not sexually mature until after 20 years of age. It was thought that gestation time was 13 to 15 months, though research carried out in 2021 now suggests a gestation period of up to five years.[7][8]
(December 21) Second specimen known to science identified in the Comoros. Since then more than 200 have been caught off the islands of Grand Comore and Anjouan.
1988
First photographs of coelacanths in their natural habitat, by Hans Fricke off Grand Comore.
1991
First coelacanth identified near Mozambique, 24kilometers offshore NE of Quelimane.
First coelacanth caught by fishermen in Tanzania. Within the year, 22 were caught in total.
2004
Canadian researcher William Sommers captured the largest recorded specimen of coelacanth off the coast of Madagascar.[citation needed]
2007
(May 19) Indonesian fisherman Justinus Lahama caught a 1.31meter (4.30ft) long, 51kilogram (112lb) coelacanth off Sulawesi Island, near Bunaken National Marine Park, that survived for 17 hours in a quarantined pool.[12]
2007
(July 15) Two fishermen from Zanzibar caught a coelacanth measuring 1.34meters (4.40ft), and weighing 27kilograms (60lb). The fish was caught off the north tip of the island, off the coast of Tanzania.[13]
2019
(November 22) Kwa-zulu-Natal south coast. Technical divers video recorded a coelacanth estimated at 1.8m, 100kg at a depth of 69nm.[14]
First find in South Africa
The discovery was covered in a 1939 Daily Dispatch article
On December 23, 1938, Hendrik Goosen, the captain of the trawlerNerine, returned to the harbour at East London, South Africa, after a trawl between the Chalumna and Ncera Rivers. As he frequently did, he telephoned his friend, Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer, curator at East London's small museum, to see if she wanted to look over the contents of the catch for anything interesting, and told her of the strange fish he has set aside for her.
Correspondence in the archives of the South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity (SAIAB, formerly the JLB Smith Institute of Ichthyology) show that Goosen went to great lengths to avoid any damage to this fish and ordered his crew to set it aside for the East London Museum. Goosen later told how the fish was steely blue when first seen, but by the time the 'Nerine' entered East London harbour many hours later, the fish had become dark grey.
Failing to find a description of the creature in any of her books, she attempted to contact her friend, Professor James Leonard Brierley Smith, but he was away for Christmas. Unable to preserve the fish, she reluctantly sent it to a taxidermist. When Smith returned, he immediately recognized it as a type of coelacanth, a group of fish previously known only from fossils. Smith named the new coelacanth Latimeria chalumnae in honor of Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer and the waters in which it was found. The two discoverers received immediate recognition, and the fish became known as a "living fossil". The 1938 coelacanth is still on display in the East London, South Africa, museum.
However, as the specimen had been stuffed, the gills and skeleton were not available for examination, and some doubt therefore remained as to whether it was truly the same species. Smith began a hunt for a second specimen that would take more than a decade.
Smith distributed thousands of flyers with a photograph of the fish, description, and reward, but World War II interrupted the search. He also did not know that the 1938 specimen near South Africa was about 1,800 miles (2,900km) south of its normal habitat.[15] The 100 Pound sterling reward was a very substantial sum to the average subsistence fisherman of the time. Fourteen years later, one specimen was found in the Comoros, but the fish was no stranger to the locals; in the port of Domoni on the Comoran island of Anjouan, the Comorians were puzzled to be so rewarded for a "gombessa" or "mame", their names for the nearly inedible fish that their fishermen occasionally caught by mistake.
The second specimen, found just before Christmas 1952[15] by Comoran fisherman Ahamadi Abdallah, was described as a different species, first as Malania hunti and later as Malania anjounae, after Daniel François Malan, the South African Prime Minister who had dispatched an SAAFDakota at the behest of Professor Smith to fetch the specimen. It was later discovered that the lack of a first dorsal fin, at first thought to be significant, was caused by an injury early in the specimen's life. Malan was a staunch creationist; when he was first shown the primitive creature, he exclaimed, with a twinkle, "My, it is ugly. Do you mean to say we once looked like that?"[16] The specimen retrieved by Smith is on display at the SAIAB in Grahamstown, South Africa where he worked.
A third specimen was caught in September 1953 and a fourth in January 1954.[15] The Comorans are now aware of the significance of the endangered species, and have established a program to return accidentally-caught coelacanth to deep water.[citation needed]
As for Smith, who died in 1968, his account of the coelacanth story appeared in the book Old Fourlegs, first published in 1956. His book Sea Fishes of the Indian Ocean, illustrated and co-authored by his wife Margaret, remains the standard ichthyological reference for the region.
In 1988, marine biologist Hans Fricke was the first to photograph the species in its natural habitat, 180 metres (590ft) off Grand Comoro's west coast.[17]
On September 18, 1997, Arnaz and Mark Erdmann, traveling in Indonesia on their honeymoon, saw a strange fish enter the market at Manado Tua, on the island of Sulawesi.[18] Mark thought it was a gombessa (Comoro coelacanth), although it was brown, not blue. An expert noticed their pictures on the Internet and realized its significance. Subsequently, the Erdmanns contacted local fishermen and asked for any future catches of the fish to be brought to them.
A second Indonesian specimen, 1.2 m in length and weighing 29kg, was captured alive on July 30, 1998.[10] It lived for six hours, allowing scientists to photographically document its coloration, fin movements and general behavior. The specimen was preserved and donated to the Bogor Zoological Museum, part of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences.[18]
DNA testing revealed this specimen differed genetically from the Comorian population.[19][20] Superficially, the Indonesian coelacanth, locally called raja laut (king of the sea), appears to be the same as those found in the Comoros, except the background coloration of the skin is brownish-gray rather than bluish. This fish was described in a 1999 issue of Comptes Rendus de l'Académie des sciences Paris by Pouyaud et al. It was given the scientific nameLatimeria menadoensis.[21] A recent molecular study estimated the divergence time between the two coelacanth species to be 40–30 mya.[22]
On May 19, 2007, Justinus Lahama, an Indonesian fisherman, caught a 1.3-metre-long, 50kg/110 pound coelacanth off the coast near Manado, on northern Sulawesi Island near Bunaken National Marine Park. After spending 30 minutes out of water, the fish, still alive, was placed in a netted pool in front of a restaurant at the edge of the sea. It survived for 17 hours. Coelacanths usually live at depths of 200–1,000 metres. The fish was filmed by local authorities swimming in the metre-deep pool, then frozen after it died. AFP claim French, Japanese and Indonesian scientists working with the French Institute for Development and Research carried out a necropsy on the coelacanth with genetic analysis to follow. The local university is now studying the carcass.[12][23]
iSimangaliso Wetland Park in South Africa
In South Africa, the search continued on and off over the years. A 46-year-old diver, Rehan Bouwer, lost his life searching for coelacanths in June 1998.
On 28 October 2000, just south of the Mozambique border in Sodwana Bay in the St. Lucia Marine Protected Area, three deep-water divers, Pieter Venter, Peter Timm, and Etienne le Roux, made a dive to 104 metres and unexpectedly spotted a coelacanth.
Calling themselves "SA Coelacanth Expedition 2000", the group returned with photographic equipment and several additional members. On 27 November, after an unsuccessful initial dive the previous day, four members of the group, Pieter Venter, Gilbert Gunn, Christo Serfontein, and Dennis Harding, found three coelacanths. The largest was between 1.5 and 1.8 metres in length; the other two were from 1.0 to 1.2 metres. The fish swam head-down and appeared to be feeding from the cavern ledges. The group returned with video footage and photographs of the coelacanths.
During the dive, however, Serfontein lost consciousness, and 34-year-old Dennis Harding rose to the surface with him in an uncontrolled ascent. Harding complained of neck pains and died from a cerebral embolism while on the boat. Serfontein recovered after being taken underwater for decompression sickness treatment.
In March–April 2002, the Jago Submersible and Fricke Dive Team descended into the depths off Sodwana and observed 15 coelacanths. A dart probe was used to collect tissue samples.
Tanzania
Coelacanths have been caught off the coast of Tanzania since 2004. Two coelacanths were initially reported captured off Songo Mnara, a small island off the edge of the Indian Ocean in August 2003. A spate of 19 more specimens of these extremely rare fishes weighing between 25 and 80kg were reported netted in the space of the next five months, with another specimen captured in January 2005. A coelacanth weighing as much as 110kg was reported by the Observer newspaper in 2006.
Officials of the Tanga Coastal Zone Conservation and Development Programme, which has a long-term strategy for protecting the species, see a connection with the timing of the captures with trawling - especially by Japanese vessels - near the coelacanth's habitat, as within a couple of days of trawlers casting their nets, coelacanths have turned up in deep-water gill nets intended for sharks. The sudden appearance of the coelacanths off Tanzania has raised real worries about its future due to damage done to the coelacanth population by the effects of indiscriminate trawling methods and habitat damage.[24]
Hassan Kolombo, a programme co-ordinator, said, "Once we do not have trawlers, we don't get the coelacanths, it's as simple as that." His colleague, Solomon Makoloweka, said they had been pressuring the Tanzanian government to limit trawlers' activities. He said, "I suppose we should be grateful to these trawlers, because they have revealed this amazing and unique fish population. But we are concerned they could destroy these precious things. We want the government to limit their activity and to help fund a proper research program so that we can learn more about the coelacanths and protect them."[24]
In a March 2008 report,[25] the Tanzania Natural Resource Forum, a local environmental nongovernmental organization, warned that a proposed port project at Mwambani Bay could threaten a coastal population of coelacanth.[26]
Evolutionary relationships
Latimeria is the type genus of Latimeriidae, a group of coelacanths that first appeared in the Early Triassic. Within Latimeriidae, it has been found by cladistic analysis to be most closely related to the genus Swenzia, known from the Late Jurassic of Europe, leaving a long ghost lineage of over 150 million years from its closest relative.[27]
Related Research Articles
Coelacanths are an ancient group of lobe-finned fish (Sarcopterygii) in the class Actinistia. As sarcopterygians, they are more closely related to lungfish and tetrapods than to ray-finned fish.
A living fossil is an extant taxon that phenotypically resembles related species known only from the fossil record. To be considered a living fossil, the fossil species must be old relative to the time of origin of the extant clade. Living fossils commonly are of species-poor lineages, but they need not be. While the body plan of a living fossil remains superficially similar, it is never the same species as the remote relatives it resembles, because genetic drift would inevitably change its chromosomal structure.
Marjorie Eileen Doris Courtenay-Latimer was a South African museum official, who in 1938, brought to the attention of the world the existence of the coelacanth, a fish thought to have been extinct for 65 million years.
James Leonard Brierley Smith was a South African ichthyologist, organic chemist, and university professor. He was the first to identify a taxidermied fish as a coelacanth, at the time thought to be long extinct.
The Chalumna River is a river in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. It is approximately 78 km long, forming at the confluence of two small rivers, the Qugwala in the West and the Mtyolo in the East. It empties into the Indian Ocean through an estuary near Kayser's Beach.
The West Indian Ocean coelacanth is a crossopterygian, one of two extant species of coelacanth, a rare order of vertebrates more closely related to lungfish and tetrapods than to the common ray-finned fishes. The other extant species is the Indonesian coelacanth.
The balloon shark is a species of catshark, and part of the family Scyliorhinidae, endemic to the southwestern Indian Ocean off South Africa and Mozambique. Benthic in nature, it is found over sandy and muddy flats at depths of 40–600 m (130–1,970 ft). This thick-bodied species has a broad, flattened head and a short tail; its distinguishing traits include narrow, lobe-like skin flaps in front of the nostrils, and a dorsal color pattern of faint darker saddles on a light grayish background.
Latimeriidae is the only extant family of coelacanths, an ancient lineage of lobe-finned fish. It contains two extant species in the genus Latimeria, found in deep waters off the coasts of southern Africa and east-central Indonesia. In addition, several fossil genera are known from the Mesozoic of Europe, the Middle East, and the southeastern United States, dating back to the Triassic.
The South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity (SAIAB), is involved in research, education and in applications of its knowledge and research to African fish fauna, for either economic or conservation benefit.
Coelacanthus is a genus of extinct coelacanths that first appeared during the Permian period. It was the first genus of coelacanths described, about a century before the discovery of the extant coelacanth Latimeria. The order Coelacanthiformes is named after it.
Sodwana Bay is a bay in South Africa on the KwaZulu Natal north coast, between St. Lucia and Lake Sibhayi. It is in the Sodwana Bay National Park, and the Maputaland Marine Reserve, and is a popular recreational diving destination. The term is commonly used to refer to both the marine reserve and the terrestrial park, as well as the geographical bay.
The Indonesian coelacanth, also called Sulawesi coelacanth, is one of two living species of coelacanth, identifiable by its brown color. It is listed as vulnerable by the IUCN, while the other species, L. chalumnae is listed as critically endangered. Separate populations of the Indonesian coelacanth are found in the waters of north Sulawesi as well as Papua and West Papua.
Axelrodichthys is an extinct genus of mawsoniid coelacanth from the Cretaceous of Africa, North and South America, and Europe. Several species are known, the remains of which were discovered in the Lower Cretaceous (Aptian-Albian) of Brazil, North Africa, and possibly Mexico, as well as in the Upper Cretaceous of Morocco (Cenomanian), Madagascar and France. The Axelrodichthys of the Lower Cretaceous frequented both brackish and coastal marine waters while the most recent species lived exclusively in fresh waters. The French specimens are the last known fresh water coelacanths. Most of the species of this genus reached 1 metre to 2 metres in length. Axelrodichthys was named in 1986 by John G. Maisey in honor of the American ichthyologist Herbert R. Axelrod.
Mawsonia is an extinct genus of prehistoric coelacanth fish. It is amongst the largest of all coelacanths, with one quadrate specimen possibly belonging to an individual measuring 5.3 metres in length. It lived in freshwater and brackish environments from the late Jurassic to the mid-Cretaceous of South America, eastern North America, and Africa. Mawsonia was first described by British paleontologist Arthur Smith Woodward in 1907.
Holophagus is an extinct genus of coelacanth belonging to Latimeriidae. The type species, Holophagus gulo, is known from the Lower Jurassic marine Lias of England. Some authors have considered the genus restricted to the Lias of England.
Mawsoniidae is an extinct family of prehistoric coelacanth fishes which lived during the Triassic to Cretaceous periods. Members of the family are distinguished from their sister group, the Latimeriidae by the presence of ossified ribs, a coarse rugose texture on the dermatocranium and cheek bones, the absence of the suboperculum and the spiracular, and reduction or loss of the descending process of the supratemporal. Mawsoniids are known from North America, Europe, South America, Africa, Madagascar and Asia. Unlike Latimeriidae, which are exclusively marine, Mawsoniidae were also native to freshwater and brackish environments. Mawsoniids represent among the youngest known coelacanths, with the youngest known remains of the freshwater genus Axelrodichthys from France and an indeterminate marine species from Morocco being from the final stage of the Cretaceous, the Maastrichtian, roughly equivalent in age to the youngest known fossils of latimeriids. Species of Mawsonia and Trachymetopon are known to have exceeded 5 metres in length, making them among the largest known bony fish to have ever existed.
Swenzia is an extinct genus of coelacanthid fish from the late Jurassic of France. It contains a single species, S. latimerae, which was originally described as Wenzia latimerae. Because the generic name Wenzia was already preoccupied by a snail, the generic name was amended to Swenzia. It is the fossil genus most closely related to the living coelacanth, Latimeria.
Jacques Millot was a French arachnologist, who also made significant contributions in the fields of ichthyology and ethnology.
Serenichthys kowiensis is a fossil species of coelacanth described in 2015 from near Grahamstown in South Africa.
Foreyia is an extinct genus of coelacanth lobe-finned fish which lived during the Middle Triassic period in what is now Canton of Graubünden, Switzerland. It contains a single species F. maxkuhni.
References
↑ "Part 7- Vertebrates". Collection of genus-group names in a systematic arrangement. Archived from the original on 5 October 2016. Retrieved 30 June 2016.
↑ Erdmann, Mark V. (April 1999). "An Account of the First Living Coelacanth known to Scientists from Indonesian Waters". Environmental Biology of Fishes. Springer Netherlands. 54 (#4): 439–443. Bibcode:1999EnvBF..54..439E. doi:10.1023/A:1007584227315. S2CID46211870. 0378-1909 (Print) 1573-5133 (Online).
↑ Pouyaud, L.; S. Wirjoatmodjo; I. Rachmatika; A. Tjakrawidjaja; R. Hadiaty & W. Hadie (1999). "Une nouvelle espèce de coelacanthe: preuves génétiques et morphologiques". Comptes Rendus de l'Académie des Sciences, Série III. 322 (4): 261–267. Bibcode:1999CRASG.322..261P. doi:10.1016/S0764-4469(99)80061-4. PMID10216801.
↑ Inoue J. G.; M. Miya; B. Venkatesh; M. Nishida (2005). "The mitochondrial genome of Indonesian coelacanth Latimeria menadoensis (Sarcopterygii: Coelacanthiformes) and divergence time estimation between the two coelacanths". Gene. 349: 227–235. doi:10.1016/j.gene.2005.01.008. PMID15777665.
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