Of course, the Coelacanth is not a living dinosaur - more of a living fossil. Why? Because up until 1938, the only proof of the Coelacanths existence was from the fossil record! In fact its very existence continues to serve as a reminder of just how little we know about the natural world.
The coelacanth - a large primitive deep-dwelling fish - has managed to provide an immediate link to our dim evolutionary past. This is because of their striking resemblance to the lobe-finned fish which are believed to have been the first to leave the water and take to land, ultimately begetting the amphibians, reptiles and mammals - including the human race - we see today.
A team of scientists based in France and Germany has just summarised the results of a 21 year study into coelacanths living in the Comoros Islands, in the western Indian Ocean.
After its initial discovery in South African waters, no other coelacanths were sighted by western scientists for a further fourteen years, when a few fish were found swimming off the Comoros. The fish was not filmed alive until the BBC serendipitously took some footage of one for the programme 'Life on Earth' broadcast in 1979 and the first photos of the fish in its natural habitat were not taken until 1988!
The study was done on Coelacanths species Latimeria chalumnae by Hans Fricke of the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen, Germany and colleagues.It is a deep blue fish that has been sighted around Africa, off the coasts of South Africa, Mozambique, Kenya, Tanzania and Madagascar. It is one of two species of coelacanth; the other, Latimeria menadoensis, is a brown fish found much more recently in Indonesia.
The scientists used remote operated vehicles to descend into the sea and survey an 8 km-long stretch of coastline around Grand Comore inhabited by coelacanths. The ROVs followed the fish into the caves in which they live, filming and photographing individuals, which are recognisable by the pattern of white spots on their blue bodies.
Coelacanths, it seems, are peaceful animals that do not act antagonistically to one another, even when groups of up to 16 fish share the same cave.
Females are markedly larger than males but there doesn't appear to be any sexual content to their gatherings.
During the day, the fish live at a depth of 170-240m along a steep volcanic landscape of caves, and at night they drift down to depths of 500 m to eat, coming back to their caves in the morning to rest.
The survey reinforces the impression that perhaps just 300-400 coelacanths live at Grand Comore and that the fish do not tolerate waters above 22 degrees Centigrade particularly well, as many fish disappeared from the study area in 1994 when the water warmed, returning later.
Other research in this time has shown that coelacanth embryos develop for three years, the longest recorded for any vertebrate.
Coelacanths also appear to have the lowest metabolic rates among vertebrates.
For example, during the entire survey period, the team did not record a single subadult, juvenile, or baby coelacanth. They didn't spot one in the Comoros, and have never spotted one in separate expeditions to study the fish off Indonesia, South Africa or Tanzania.
Only a single baby coelacanth has ever been sighted, filmed by different researchers in 2009 at a depth of 160m.
So we do not know where coelacanths give birth, where the young go, or why they don't live with the adults. Such information is vital to preserve species of such rarity.
We still have little idea about how long these ancient-looking fish live for. However the survey by Fricke’s team confirms that coelacanths can live for at least 21 years; they recorded the same fish at the start and end of the survey, while 17 fish were sighted 19 years apart. That confirms that it is unexceptional for a coelacanth to live for two decades at least – the first real evidence of a coelacanth minimum age.
The scientists’ survey also allowed them to calculate the mortality rate of the fish, based on how often the same fish were sighted over the following years.
Other deep water fish have been found to live for around 100 years, so it’s plausible that coelacanths do indeed reach this epic age. But we still don't know for sure, nor what their average age might be.
One bit of positive news is that accidental catches of coelacanths around the Comoros are declining steeply.
Fishermen in the area used to fish using a long line and hook from motorless canoes called galawas, and would occasionally snare a coelacanth while fishing at night for oilfish.
Nowadays, the fishermen use motorized boats called vedettes to travel further out to sea – mostly avoiding the coelacanth habitat. Between 1954 and 1995 two to four coelacanths were taken each year. But after 2000, that has fallen to just 0.3 coelacanths on average.
These fishermen are the only known cause of mortality for coelacanths; Fricke’s team’s survey occasionally encountered large sand tiger sharks in the area but never witnessed any predation on coelacanths by larger fishes.
As ever, though, with extremely rare species, threats to their very existence never seem far away. In Tanzania, another home to coelacanths, fishermen once took edible small fish from shallow waters. But once these were wiped out, they took to using deep-water gill nets. Since 2003, when these nets were first used, more than 80 coelacanths have been caught, and the number is increasing each year.
That is of huge concern for this population of Latimeria and it also reinforces how similar might happen around the Comoros, one of the fish’s remaining known strongholds.
One answer, if it can be arranged with the people of the Comoros, is to set aside a protected area along the south-west coast of Grand Comore, a policy supported by Fricke’s team and other researchers.
We still know so little about this ancient fish. And perhaps we owe it: having thought it extinct for so long, it might be considered tragic to let it go extinct now.
This is a fish that has survived almost unaltered for millions of years. Yet we risk it becoming extinct in just a handful of years due to subtle shifts in the way we choose to fish, and treat our marine life.
For related articles click here for the following links:
DINOSAUR: Did Pterosaurs hang upside down?
LIVING DINOSAUR SHARK - The Frilled Shark
LIVING DINOSAURS - The Coelacanth
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