A Baby Coelacanth!
22 11 2009In the sporadic tradition of starting your Sunday with something completely apolitial, I present – a baby coelacanth (see-la-kanth)! If you are like the vast majority of people, you have no idea what a coelacanth is, but that’s OK because I’m about to tell you.
In college, I took a seminar on mass extinctions. For my final paper I wrote about animals which had survived the occasional cataclysmic events (like meteorite impact) that wiped out the vast majority of life on earth. Sometimes a particular species was able to adapt to changing conditions, or travel long distances in search of food, or had a flexible diet plan that allowed it to adapt. Sometimes a species was just plain tough and managed to pull through while its more sensitive, finicky cousins perished. These extinctions have happened repeatedly in Earth’s history, and some species like the shark, and the horseshoe crab, have survived.
My paper was entitled, “What are You Still Doing Here?” and one of the main characters was the strange but somehow endearing coelacanth. Predating the dinosaurs, and believed to have gone extinct with them at the end of the Cretaceous Period, a coelacanth was found in a fisherman’s net in the Indian Ocean some time in the 1930s and the scientific community was beside themselves. Dubbed a “living fossil” the coelacanth gained rock star status in the very narrow segment of the population who was paying attention to such things.
But the reason that the coelacanth captured the imagination was not only because it had been presumed extinct, but because it was one of those “missing link” species that marked the transition from one type of creature to another. The coelacanth was somewhere in the grey zone between fish and amphibians, sporting nifty little feet…or fins…or feet-like fins, or fin-like feet.
Adding to the mystery and star-power of the coelacanth was the fact that another one was not seen until 1952, almost two nail-biting decades after that first exciting discovery. You can imagine how paleontologists must have felt. Here they’d been studying hard dry fossils of this creature, thinking it was long gone and then, blam! A real one in the flesh, right in front of them. It was blue! How could they have known that?! Incredible.
Eventually they were discovered in the wild, swimming around and we learned that they lived between 400 and 700 feet deep, and were cave dwellers. They also had a habit of swimming upside down, and standing on their heads on the bottom of the ocean for minutes at a time. You gotta love an eccentric prehistoric fish.
But with all these discoveries, never until now were there baby pictures of a coelacanth! But this video footage has just come from a research vessel off the coast of Indonesia. Aren’t they adorable? For a fish? These little ones were found 6000 miles from where the first coelacanth was spotted all that time ago, so the good news is that they may not be as rare and limited in range as was first suspected. And further good news for the coelacanth is that it tastes really bad.
Anyway, thanks for indulging me in my moment of geek-dom, and do enjoy this brief snapshot into the world of baby coelacanths. It’s as close as you’ll get to time travel.
November 22nd, 2009 at 8:41 AM
S W E E T… Thanks for posting (~:
November 22nd, 2009 at 8:41 AM
AKM, glad to see your taking a break. What a wonderful fish. Thanks for bringing this to us. I would have never known.
November 22nd, 2009 at 8:41 AM
wow ! thanks!!
cool way to start the day.
November 22nd, 2009 at 8:44 AM
Thanks for sharing! Nice start to the day.
November 22nd, 2009 at 8:48 AM
Who knew??!! Other than you!
Amazing.
November 22nd, 2009 at 8:58 AM
Wow, a “moment of geek” a la Rachel Maddow!
November 22nd, 2009 at 9:01 AM
I read a kids book about the rediscovery of the coelacanths way back in 4th or 5th grade…one of the books that has stuck with me for decades!!
November 22nd, 2009 at 9:15 AM
I wanted so badly to be a paleontologist when I was a kid. I also remember being enthralled with the coelacanths because they had feet! Sharks, Horseshoe crabs, and even birds… amazing glimpses at the pre-human earth.
It makes me wonder what it will be like here in a few billion years…..
November 22nd, 2009 at 9:16 AM
I NEEDED something different after a week of $P – thank you! Renews our faith in the possibility that there are species non as extinct as we thought. However, we must never give up the fight to keep others (like polar bears) from actually disappearing from our earth. Thank you AKM!
November 22nd, 2009 at 9:36 AM
That is so interesting! I just love learning something new, and I truly appreciate our natural world. Thanks, AKM.
November 22nd, 2009 at 9:36 AM
This is way cool AKM – thanks! I wanted to be an icthyologist (a person who studies fish) when I was a teenager. I thought it would be great to study fish in the warm Pacific Ocean, like in Hawaii or Indonesia – maybe I would have seen one of these amazing creatures live. But, along with the idea of being an archaeologist, I didn’t become a scientist of any type. But I was, and did remain, a geek so I am happy. I can be an armchair scientist while watching National Geographic and Discovery and other wonderful shows about our amazing world. Geeks rule!
November 22nd, 2009 at 9:39 AM
I too was fascinated with paleontology when younger, as was my middle child. It’s so cool to see coelacanths swimming. Thanks!
November 22nd, 2009 at 9:57 AM
Thanks for the video, AKM; the pre-historic fish have always fascinated me, too. And the name of the critter, coelacanth, is just so neat to pronounce! Some words are like that for me: Madagascar, chrysanthemum, Parthenon, duodenum, Constantinople, perchance, gloaming, are just a few. beth.
November 22nd, 2009 at 10:05 AM
When we travel from Madagascar to Constantinople, could we, perchance, stop at the Parthenon and swallow chrysanthemums into our duodenums?
(I’ve learned not to ask my brain why on things such as these…sorry.)
AKM, love the story of the ancient, head-standing fish.
If you can stand a little more geekdom:
Pets Teach Science (golden retrievers explain atoms):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qwBfBugo_A&feature=player_embedded
Happy Sunday to all.
November 22nd, 2009 at 10:06 AM
AKM – it’s all just a big hoax and now even you are in on it! Science, ba humbug! That’s a picture of some cool looking dust made out to be a creature – there ain’t no way I’m related to a bug like thing with flippery feet! Uh uh, no way, no how!
Where’s a poor girl to turn for comfort? I want someone to tell me that my DNA is blessed and completely unlike anything else on the planet. I want to be special, different, a goddess dropped in from somewhere else to survey my domain of lesser, unmagical creatures and props. I want to boss around these lowly lifeforms as though they are enslaved to me, even though they are in no way related to me and my kind. I want it NOW!
And would someone please hurry up with the Rapture prep? This damm bus is getting cramped, stinky and we keep having to hide it from wannabe graffiti artists! But I really want to Rapture the bus, too because it has such a cool picture of me on it and I’ll need that in heaven so that I have a campaign bus there, also too! You betcha Lord!
November 22nd, 2009 at 10:15 AM
Ooops… I didn’t mean to say “campaign” bus ya know. That was just a slip of my snake-like tongue – happens sometimes when I’m progressing my mind. I meant TOUR bus, you betcha!
November 22nd, 2009 at 10:18 AM
nothing wrong with geek-dom…this is to cool
November 22nd, 2009 at 10:19 AM
Martha Unalaska Yard Sign I was just thinking about how someone should send this to palin or one of her supporters sites,would be a hoot.A good one after her rant on the human species and how they became.
November 22nd, 2009 at 10:20 AM
twain12 yes it is cool and AKM bette3r watch out she is showing she is smarter and brighter than palin could ever think to be.
November 22nd, 2009 at 10:34 AM
I have always been amazed by prehistoric creatures that managed to adapt. I wonder if homo sapiens will be able to do the same?
November 22nd, 2009 at 10:52 AM
This was fabulous. Thanks. The world is an amazing place filled with delights all abounding – the hedgehog, the echnidna, the platypus and coelacanth babies to name a few of the more exotic ones.
And thanks to Mudpuppy Wannabe (@14) for Pets Teach Science – that was a hoot!
November 22nd, 2009 at 11:06 AM
Reply to Mudpuppy Wannabe @ 14~ VERY clever; thanks for the chuckle. Sounds swell to me…may we swallow in the gloaming? (I, too, quit asking my brain loooooooong ago…)
To Martha Unalaska Yard Sign @ 15/16 ~ Don’t be hard on yourself [your SP-channeled-self]…it isn’t/wasn’t *your* fault. The mis-wording was entirely the fault of [take your pick] 1) opposition researchers, 2) pj-clad bloggers, 3) Levi, 4) the A-team, 5) “headquarters”, 6) scree, 7) godless, UnAmerican lie-spreaders,
the man in the moon, 9) [insert any blame-recipient-name here...preferably prefaced by a personal attack on their physical appearance and/or attributes and/or both] ________. beth.
November 22nd, 2009 at 11:10 AM
AKM – I was a geology major in my youth and share your enthusiasm of coelacanths. They bear their young live, only a few at a time, which makes it even more amazing they survived periods of extinction.
November 22nd, 2009 at 12:00 PM
Super cool. Interesting color they have.
November 22nd, 2009 at 12:19 PM
AKM, when I was in 5th grade oh so long ago I wrote a short story from the point of view of a coelacanth (unfortunately that story is lost). The premise was that the coelacanth would be here long after we humans had wiped the continents free of our own existence and that intelligent sea creatures would long after lament the lack of living specimens when they had such a wonderful trove of archeological remains in the form of a city called Atlantis.
One comment I remember my charachter said was that after humans were all dead and gone “it doesn’t make sense to worry about what color they were back then, they’re all the same color now!”
How fitting that this odd fish is blue.
November 22nd, 2009 at 12:42 PM
i love geeks. a person could get smart hanging around them. a person could, after awhile, become a geek herself. and be cool.
November 22nd, 2009 at 12:48 PM
@ Martha Unalaska Yard Sign Hahahahahahaha!!!
And “I didn’t believe in the theory that human beings – thinking, loving beings – originated from fish that sprouted legs and crawled out of the sea. Or that human beings began as single-celled organisms that developed into monkeys who eventually swung down from the trees…”
Science is a b*tch, huh?
November 22nd, 2009 at 12:50 PM
What wonderful news. I love good news. Need more, need more.
November 22nd, 2009 at 12:57 PM
The question is driving me to distraction. How do you know it doesnt taste good? Was it prepared properly? Is there a coelacanth cookbook? Perhaps it’s best as sushi wrapped in kelp or some primordial algei dipping sauce. Poached in dinosaur milk? All in all a gastronomic quandry.
November 22nd, 2009 at 1:04 PM
So, AKM, if you don’t mind my asking, what was your major in college? I was thinking journalism or liberal arts before, but now????
November 22nd, 2009 at 1:10 PM
Cool! Thanks for sharing, AKM. Just goes to show how many wonderful surprises the Earth holds and why the need for preservation and care.
November 22nd, 2009 at 1:13 PM
Saw the video this week, a diver friend posted it, to my outright fascination. Too cool.
November 22nd, 2009 at 1:15 PM
Very cool and I love the color. I learned about coelacanths way back in high school but I never knew they liked to stand on their heads…now THAT’S a bit of fishy trivia I’ll have to remember!
November 22nd, 2009 at 1:31 PM
Unfortunately as soon as deep trolling became possible fishermen were trying to catch as many coelacanth (is it a plural/singular noun like fish and trout?) as possible because there was a bounty on them.
A some point scientists realized they might be responsible for driving the fish into extension, so hopefully the bounties have stopped.
Sometimes Homo sapien is a really stoooopid animal.
The short version of “sapient man” is “sap”.
November 22nd, 2009 at 1:35 PM
Cool film clip.
Congrats AKM for the Alaska muckraker dinner award/roast or what ever.
As usual well earned and well deserved.
But don’t rest on you laruals, (that is such a silly saying) – we want film of it.
November 22nd, 2009 at 1:35 PM
(((bubbles)))
November 22nd, 2009 at 2:13 PM
So instead of all becoming paleontologists, we became Palintoxicologists!
November 22nd, 2009 at 4:07 PM
Neat! Thanks, AKM.
And thanks, Beth. “Some words are like that for me: Madagascar, chrysanthemum, Parthenon, duodenum, Constantinople, perchance, gloaming, are just a few.”
Me too, me too! I could pronounce “chrysanthemum” when I was four, and so proud of myself.
November 22nd, 2009 at 4:22 PM
You geek-dom moment was most interesting and enjoyable! You inspired me to make a geeky trip over to wiki where I was shocked to discover that baby coelacanth will grow to about 5-1/2 ft.
November 22nd, 2009 at 7:42 PM
beth @14 — ooh, yes, in the gloaming!
How funny — it was actually ‘gloaming’ that kicked off the silliness in my head. (I’ve always loved that word…) How completely ironically perfect that I forgot to include it.
November 22nd, 2009 at 8:12 PM
You are not really a geek until you’ve listened to Shriekback’s tune from their Oil & Gold album… from 25 years ago.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3b1m-_sI8Is
November 22nd, 2009 at 9:15 PM
What a TREAT! Thx AKM! I became fascinated with the coelacanth after seeing the preserved one at the Vancouver BC aquarium back in the 70’s. It was about 4 feet long, scales like leather, and the fins. One could just imagine how those fins would evolve into feet, the bone structure was so strong, and eventually turning into an alligator or croc.
Here’s a website that shows a pic of a preserved one:
http://creationwiki.org/Coelacanth
“Coelacanths’ scales produce mucus as their bodies continually excrete oil that works as a laxative, rendering the fish nearly inedible unless they have been dried out and salted” ..snipped..
BTW, congrats too on winning the Cooks Inlet Muckracker award! You so deserve it for putting out the word about the Mt Redoubt oil tanks to a LOT of people – earlier than most MSM.
November 22nd, 2009 at 9:20 PM
@ 40, sauerkraut.
That was so cool to listen to your Shriekback’s tune while rewatching AKM’s Youtube. It really fits!