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Science History
The Coelacanth Rediscovery (1938)
The 1938 rediscovery of a living coelacanth off South Africa - a fish thought extinct for 66 million years - revolutionised ichthyology overnight.
Era: Modern Region: South Africa Year: 1938
📖 Overview
In December 1938, museum curator Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer spotted an unusual fish among a South African trawler catch. J.L.B. Smith identified it as a coelacanth - a lobe-finned fish thought extinct since the Cretaceous. It was one of the century's most extraordinary biological discoveries and reframed the fish-to-tetrapod evolutionary story.