A fish thought to have been extinct for 65 million years appeared where its fossils were found. The fossils appeared at the same time as "living fossils", which amazed researchers.
This living fossil is what scientists describe as a "legged fish" coelacanth. This is a fish that has leg structure. Its fins are very similar to the limbs of reptiles, and the larvae have a fully functional lung structure that disappears when they grow up.
According to this, some scientists believe that the coelacanth may be a retrograde in the history of animal evolution. Other animals go from sea to land, but it goes from land to sea. Or they first went from sea to land, and then returned to the sea from land because they could not adapt to life on land, or other reasons.
Before 1938, biologists generally believed that the creature had disappeared into the ocean shortly after the fifth mass extinction 65 million years ago. It was not until it was accidentally caught by fishermen that it appeared to humans again, or for the first time, as a "living fossil".
In 1938, a fishing boat in east London accidentally caught a very strange-looking fish, more than two meters long, and with scales like armor. On the chest and abdomen, there are also two thick and strong shark fins, like the limbs of a reptile.
Because the fishermen had never seen this fish at all, when they returned to the pier, many fishermen came to watch. Ladima, who happened to work at the Museum of London, also saw this strange big fish, because of its unique appearance, fishermen could not name it, Ladima painted it, ready to check the information to see what kind of rare species it was. It will make so many fishermen unable to name.
When he returned home, Ladima looked up information about fish and found that there seemed to be no species in the books that matched the large fish he had seen.
Ladima also thought that he had discovered a new species, so he sent his portrait of a strange fish to Professor Smith, a zoologist to ask him if it was a new species.
After receiving Ladima's drawing, Professor Smith immediately recognized the fish as an ancient species of coelacanth. The surprised professor was a little unconvinced, so after inquiring about Ladima's discovery process in detail, he couldn't wait to go to the dock to find the fishermen who caught coelacanths.
Professor Smith was disappointed and speechless because the fish was so strange that it could not be sold in the market, so the fishermen took it home and ate it. In the end, only a few larger bones were found in the trash can of the fisherman's house.
Professor Smith did not give up, and while doing research on the remaining bones, he issued a bounty on the dock, and he would offer a reward of one hundred pounds as long as he caught a coelacanth.
It wasn't long after the bounty order was issued, World War II broke out. Fishermen's access to the sea was restricted, and the search for coelacanths had to stop.
It wasn't until 1952 that fishermen finally caught a second coelacanth. When a living fossil creature appeared in front of Professor Smith's eyes, he felt that it was dreamy and real. Since then, it has been found one after another.
After walking alive, people really saw the magic of this ancient species. Coelacanths can live for 17 hours on land without water! This also proves once again that it was once a terrestrial creature.
As an ancient species, the coelacanth's reproductive capacity is quite stretched. Although they have a lifespan of 100 years. But sexual maturity is reached at the age of fifty, and this degree of late maturity is unique in the biological world.
Not only does it mature late, but the pregnancy cycle of coelacanth is as long as five years. This rate of reproduction means that once their population is destroyed, it is a matter of 100 years to recover.
Coelacanths have lived on Earth for nearly 400 million years, escaped the extinction of dinosaurs, escaped the ice age, and wonder if they can avoid the "terminator of species" of humans?
