In the textbook of zoology, according to which schoolchildren of the Soviet Union studied in the 40-50s of the XX century, it was reported that at a certain stage in the evolution of the animal world of the Earth, namely during the Paleozoic era, approximately on the border of the Carboniferous and Permian periods, the first cross-finned fish - coelacanths. It happened about 300 million years ago, tens of millions of years before the first dinosaurs passed the Earth. Coelacanths existed for almost 250 million years in almost unchanged form, as evidenced by numerous finds of their fossilized skeletons in layers of the earth's crust of different ages. An image of such a skeleton was also given in the mentioned textbook. And about 50 million years ago, all coelacanths became extinct and disappeared forever from the face of the Earth (the age of the last found imprint of a coelacanth skeleton is 70 million years). So it was said in the textbook, and so was the science of that time.
Tireless Lady's Wondrous Booty
In 1938, in the port city of East London, located on the east coast of now South Africa, the local history museum was headed by the young and very energetic Miss Marjorie Cortenay-Latimer. From the very beginning of her work, she concentrated her efforts on creating exhibitions that tell about life in those parts. Seeing that the main hobby of local residents is fishing, she made acquaintances with the captains of trawlers and managed to captivate them with her enthusiasm in the search for rare specimens of the local marine fauna. The fishermen took the "strangers" from the catch and kept them for Miss Latimer.
On the morning of December 22, 1938, Marjorie received a call from the Irwin & Johnson fishing company and was told that one of the trawlers had brought her some mysterious "guest of the sea" for research.
On the deck of the trawler lay a heap of fresh catch, mostly common sharks, but below them Miss Latimer noticed a large blue fish with powerful scales and unusual fins. The lady asked to pull out a strange find from the heap.
Marjorie had never seen anything like it in her life. Ego coloration, fins, scales, mouth of an unusual shape … Each fin consisted of separate fins, as if collected in a tassel, and the tail ended in a triangular blade. When asked whether the trawlmaster had encountered anything like this before, the old man replied that in 30 years of work he had never come across such a fish, with fins resembling human hands, and itself more like a large lizard than a fish.
The "Lizard" was measured and weighed: it was about one and a half meters long and pulled 57.5 kilograms. In addition, one amateur photographer took several pictures at the request of Miss Latimer, but, as often happens in such cases, the "law of meanness" worked: the film subsequently turned out to be exposed. By the time Marjorie saw the fish, the latter had been dead for several hours, and the weather was hot, so there was a strong unpleasant smell from the "man-hand", and some special one, not like the smell of ordinary rotting fish. All the insides of the mysterious exhibit had to be thrown away.
Promotional video:
Help define
Having looked through some reference books, Miss Latimer did not find any information in them that would make it possible to identify the curiosity that fell into her hands. Marjorie made the usual measurements in such cases, sketched the fish and persuaded the chairman of the museum's board to allow her to place an order for making a stuffed animal.
At the same time, Miss Latimer sent a letter to a prominent ichthyologist, a professor at Graham Stone College, and to her longtime acquaintance J. L. B. Smith. The museum lady described the mysterious fish and attached her drawing to the letter.
Here is the text of this letter:
East London, South Africa.
December 23, 1938.
Dear Dr. Smith, Yesterday I had to meet a completely unusual fish. The captain of a fishing trawler informed me about it, I immediately went to the ship and, having examined it, hastened to deliver it to our preparation. However, at first I made a very rough sketch. Hope you can help me identify this fish.
It is covered with powerful scales, real armor, fins resemble limbs and are covered with scales up to the very edge of skin rays. Each ray of the stabbing dorsal fin is covered with small white spines. See sketch in red ink.
I would be extremely grateful if you would give me your opinion, although I perfectly understand how difficult it is to conclude anything on the basis of such a description.
Wish you all the best. Yours sincerely M. Cortenet-Latimer.
No professor, you are not crazy
And here is how Professor Smith himself describes his reaction to this letter:
- On the afternoon of January 3, 1938, one of our friends brought us a large packet of mail from the city, mostly Christmas and New Year's greetings. We sorted out the mail and sat down to read each of our letters. Among my letters, devoted, as always, mainly to exams and fish, there was also a letter with the stamp of the East London Museum - I immediately recognized Miss Latimer's handwriting.
The first page was in the nature of a usual request for help with the definition. I turned the sheet over and saw the drawing. It's strange … It doesn't look like any fish of our seas … In general, it doesn't look like any fish I know. Rather, something like a lizard. And suddenly a bomb exploded in my brain: because of writing and a sketch, like on a screen, a vision of the inhabitants of the ancient seas, fish that have not existed for a long time, that lived in the distant past and are known to us only from fossil remains, fossils arose. “Don't go crazy!” I ordered myself sternly. However, the senses argued with common sense; I did not take my eyes off the sketch, trying to see more of what it really was. A hurricane of surging thoughts and feelings overshadowed everything else from me.
- For God's sake, what happened? - asked the wife.
I woke up, looked again at the letter and the sketch, and slowly said:
“This is from Miss Latimer. Unless I was crazy, she found something out of the ordinary. Don't think I'm crazy, but it looks like it's an ancient fish that everyone considers extinct many millions of years ago!.."
The professor is not crazy. It really was that ancient cross-finned coelacanth fish, supposedly extinct a long time ago. But both he and the lucky Miss Latimer believed their eyes only after a careful study of everything that remained from this ichthyological miracle. And only then they decided to make a public announcement of their discovery. The coelacanth was caught on a sandbank near the mouth of the Chalumna River, so Dr. Smith suggested that the fish be named after the one who discovered it and in memory of the place where it was caught: Latimeria chalumnae - chalumna coelacanth. The proposal did not raise any objections, and under this name the "revived" representative of the Celacanthus order is now known to the entire scientific world.
They live and reproduce
The report of the sensational discovery was met in different ways. Part of the academic community greeted him and congratulated Miss Latimer and Professor Smith sincerely. But there were also those who did not believe in the competence of the professor and even suspected him of falsification. The skeptics were helped by the fact that the coelacanth was caught in a single specimen, and, despite all attempts to get at least one more, it "sank into the water."
And only after 14 long years, the entrepreneur in the field of fishing, owner and captain of a fishing schooner Eric Hunt, who became a faithful assistant and friend of Dr. Smith and Miss Latimer, caught another one and a half meter coelacanth. This happened on December 20, 1952, off the coast of the Pamanzi island from the Comoros archipelago, lying between the northern tip of the island of Madagascar and the eastern coast of the African continent.
In the next eight years, the fishermen came across another 16 coelacanths ranging in length from 109 to 180 centimeters and weighing from 19.5 to 95 kilograms. All of them were extracted from the coastal waters of Comoros, and from a depth of 150 to 390 meters. After that, even the most "stubborn" skeptics have no reason to doubt that the cross-finned fish, allegedly extinct 50 (or 70) million years ago, are alive and well today. Later, about 100 more individuals were caught there. The government of the Comoros declared coelacanth a state property. And in 1992, the "fossil" fish was caught off the coast of Mozambique.
However, the sensational messages related to celacanth did not end there. In one of the issues of the American magazine Fate for 1999, information appeared that in 1998, 60 years after the capture of the first specimen of coelacanths, a new, "second" generation of coelacanths was discovered, living six thousand miles from Africa, off the coast of Indonesia.
Source: Magazine "Secrets of the XX century" No. 13. Vadim Ilyin