A Strange Fish Indeed: The “Discovery” of a Living Fossil

by
Robert H. Grant, School for Professional Studies, Saint Louis University

Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer and her coelacanth

Part I—From the diary* of Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer while serving as curator at the East London Museum, Cape Town, South Africa.

December 23, 1938
This morning started out like so many others here in my isolated but peaceful corner of the world. The summer sun rose over the Indian Ocean and began its daily work of baking the ground outside and transforming the air inside our little museum into a palpable and oppressive stew of heat. A pile of recently unearthed reptile bones lay in a heap atop my desk, ready for reassembly and mounting. My day’s work, and just the sort of puzzle that I love to solve.

Around lunchtime, Nigel rang to tell me that the Nerine had just pulled into port. My friend, Capt. Hendrick Goosen, had just returned from a trawling trip around the mouth of the nearby Chalumna River. Hendrick often calls on me when his catch is substantial so that I can look and see if there may be anything of scientific interest for the museum. More often than not, I find nothing but a pile of malodorous fish. For this reason, and because the proposition of venturing out into the midday heat and dust seemed torturous, I hesitated. Upon consideration, however, I figured that it might be the last opportunity I would have to visit with the Captain and to wish him and his crew a Merry Christmas before the 25th.

I chatted idly with the amicable Captain while we circled the huge heap of fish lying on the deck of the trawler, scanning the pile for anything unusual. I was just about to leave when a strange bluish fin poking through the pile caught my eye. It was like no fish fin I had ever seen in all my years at the museum. The Captain and I shoved the other fish off the top of the pile to uncover the owner of the odd fin. There it lay before me, the most beautiful fish I had ever seen, five feet long, and a pale mauve blue with iridescent silver markings. I am no fish expert, but I had the strange feeling that somehow this fish was special. I decided to take the fish with me, and after a heated discussion with the taxi driver, we stuffed the huge fish into the backseat of the cab and headed off for the museum…

Questions

  1. Look at the picture of a coelacanth in Handout I. What do you see that might have led Ms. Courtenay-Latimer to believe that such a fish might be special?
  2. What should Ms. Courtenay-Latimer do next? (Remember, she is not a fish expert.)


* The diary entries are largely fictitious and represent the imaginative work of the author of the case, except for certain selected passages from Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer’s own writings which have been interspersed.

Go to Part II

Date Posted: 06/24/05 nas

Image Credit: Photo of Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer and her coelacanth provided courtesy of the East London Museum/ISC and the International Society of Cryptozoology.

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