A curator’s unintentional observation transformed an uncommon discovery into a scholarly sensation. The globe discovered that a “vanished” species was, in fact, still thriving.
Courtney-Latimer's taxidermy coelacanth on display. Photo: South Africa Tourism from South Africa – East London Museum, East London, Eastern Cape, South Africa/CC BY 2.0
In 1938, Marjorie Courtney-Latimer, a custodian at the East London Museum in South Africa, accomplished what would subsequently be deemed one of the foremost significant unveilings of the 20th century. While scrutinizing a peculiar finding reported to her by the skipper of a fishing vessel, she spotted a fish unlike any recognized classification.
This was documented by the periodical IFLScience.
Courtney-Latimer was successful in pinpointing within an extraordinary fish from the fishing haul a lineage that was presumed to have ceased existing for in excess of 66 million years.
As an employee at the East London Museum, the museum’s keeper had been requesting fishermen for years to notify her of any odd discoveries. On December 22, 1938, she obtained a communication from the captain of the Nerine. She promptly traveled to the harbor and observed a fish that bore no resemblance to any other species she knew.
Based on her account, the fish displayed a light purple hue, enveloped in rigid scales, and possessed four fins resembling appendages and an atypical tail. The specimen reached nearly five feet in length, which even unnerved the cab driver conveying it to the museum. Despite this, the museum's administration initially dismissed the finding as unimportant.
Given the challenges in preserving the body, and rejections from morgues to refrigerate it, the curator opted for taxidermy. Only then did she secure a response from the renowned ichthyologist James Leonard Brierley Smith. Upon viewing the fish on February 16, 1939, he discerned that he was beholding a genuine coelacanth, an affiliate of a cohort that had vanished from the fossil annals since the era of the dinosaurs.
The unearthed species gained the designation Latimeria chalumnae, in honor of Courtney Latimer and the Chalumna River. A subsequent specimen surfaced 14 years subsequently, and presently there exist two recognized extant species of coelacanths: the African and the Indonesian. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, these fish face critical endangerment.
Scientists underscore that it was Courtney-Latimer's expertise and persistence that facilitated the conservation of the specimen and the revision of a segment of the evolutionary narrative. Notwithstanding almost a century of investigation, numerous facets of the existence of contemporary coelacanths persist as a conundrum – these “living fossils” have proven to be considerably more sophisticated and multifaceted than initially conceived.
Bear in mind that amidst millions of preserved fish in Louisiana, scientists are safeguarding an exceptional pocket shark. It constitutes the sole representation of its species identified by science.
Source: tsn.ua