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Living Fossil: The Story of the Coelacanth
"An engrossing tale of obsession, adventure and scientific reasoning." ―Betty Ann Kevles, Los Angeles Times In the winter of 1938, a fishing boat by chance dragged from the Indian Ocean a fish thought extinct for 70 million years. It was a coelacanth, which thrived concurrently with dinosaurs and pterodactyls―an animal of major importance to those who study the history of vertebrate life.
Living Fossil describes the life and habitat of the coelcanth and what scientists have learned about it during fifty years of research. It is an exciting and very human story, filled with ambitious and brilliant people, that reveals much about the practice of modern science.
Living Fossil describes the life and habitat of the coelcanth and what scientists have learned about it during fifty years of research. It is an exciting and very human story, filled with ambitious and brilliant people, that reveals much about the practice of modern science.
254 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1991
23 people are currently reading
169 people want to read
About the author
Keith S. Thomson
18 books9 followersKeith Thomson is Executive Officer of the American Philosophical Society and Professor Emeritus of Natural History, University of Oxford.
Modified from an interview with Greg Ross in “American Scientist”
I have had a wonderful career as a professor of biology and dean (at Yale), a museum director (Yale, Philadelphia, and Oxford), and more recently as an author. I started out as a biologist interested in the evolution of fishes and the origin of major features in the transition between fishes and tetrapods. That inevitably drew me both to paleontology and to study of the “living fossil” lungfishes and the extraordinary living coelacanth. In 1966 I obtained for study the first fresh specimen of the coelacanth from the Comoro Islands (Living Fossil, Norton, 1991). My overall goal was to understand fossils in the same physiological, biomechanical, and ecological terms as we study living animals. In the process I have published on subjects ranging from the evolution of cell size and DNA content in lungfish, and intracranial mechanics in the coelacanth and its fossil relatives, to the origin of the tetrapod middle ear and the body shape and swimming mechanics of sharks. From an early interest in embryology, it was but a short step also to what is now called (rather unhappily) “evo-devo,” or the study of the roles that developmental processes play in evolution, and to writing Morphogenesis and Evolution (Oxford University Press, 1988).
After having been supported by NSF continuously for some 20 years, I cheerfully stepped off the grant treadmill, and in recent years I have had immense pleasure in studying the history of science and in writing for a popular audience, starting with the column Marginalia in American Scientist that I have written for thirty years. My current interests range from Thomas Jefferson and 18th-century science to Charles Darwin. Recent books include Treasures on Earth (Faber and Faber, 2002), Before Darwin (Yale University Press, 2005), Fossils: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2005), The Legacy of the Mastodon: The Golden Age of Fossils in America (Yale University Press, 2008), A Passion for Nature: Thomas Jefferson and Natural History (Thomas Jefferson Foundation, 2008) and The Young Charles Darwin (Yale University Press, 2009). Jefferson’s Shadow: the Story of his Science (Yale University Press, 2012) was the culmination of several years of work as a visiting fellow at the International Centre for Jefferson Studies at Monticello. Due in 2015 is Private Doubt, Public Dilemma (Yale University Press) based on my Terry Lectures at Yale in 2012.
http://keithsthomson.com/index.html
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
April 12, 2021
Living Fossil
The Story of the Coelacanth
By Keith S. Thomson - (born 27.09.1938)
The author, Keith S. Thomson is an English Biologist and ‘coelacanth’ expert who has dissected several coelacanth specimens, tells the story of fifty years of scientific research on a unique animal.
In December 1938, a South African fishing trawler netted an unusual fish that was thought to be extinct for 80 million years.
The primary interest of this fish resides in its four ‘lobe-finned means of locomotion, as in Devonian times it was one of the immediate ancestors to land-dwelling vertebrates.
The fish was named after its discoverer, Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer: “Latimeria chalumnae”. (Chalmunae for the location).
The first half of the book reads like an “Indiana Jones” adventure story, but as excitingly true events.
From lack of a large freezer, lack of enough formalin conservative failed photographs to the ignorant blunder of a taxidermist, Christmas season, and rain-drenched roads, everything that could go wrong, did go wrong.
From the first specimen caught near the estuary of the Chalumna River eastern South Africa to the second specimen caught near the Comoran Islands, between the northern tip of Madagascar and the African mainland, four years went by.
The second half of the book reads more like a love story.
Scientists from over the world wanted to have a coelacanth for themselves. To dissect it, to study it, to become as famous as the fish in their hands.
The author, one of the lucky few, came to do just that. In the further chapters of the book, he could describe the catches from the Comoro’s, place the increasing knowledge like pieces of a puzzle together.
Where do they live? How do they live: Swimming and feeding? Physiology and behavior. Reproduction? Coelacanth’s relations to the origin of the Tetrapod. Population size, Conservation, and the Future of Latimeria.
The story ends on a somber note:
As it is not comestible, it has no other predators but scientists.
Of all the endangered and threatened species in the world, Latimeria chalumnae may well be the only organism whose extinction could be caused by scientists.
The Story of the Coelacanth
By Keith S. Thomson - (born 27.09.1938)
The author, Keith S. Thomson is an English Biologist and ‘coelacanth’ expert who has dissected several coelacanth specimens, tells the story of fifty years of scientific research on a unique animal.
In December 1938, a South African fishing trawler netted an unusual fish that was thought to be extinct for 80 million years.
The primary interest of this fish resides in its four ‘lobe-finned means of locomotion, as in Devonian times it was one of the immediate ancestors to land-dwelling vertebrates.
The fish was named after its discoverer, Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer: “Latimeria chalumnae”. (Chalmunae for the location).
The first half of the book reads like an “Indiana Jones” adventure story, but as excitingly true events.
From lack of a large freezer, lack of enough formalin conservative failed photographs to the ignorant blunder of a taxidermist, Christmas season, and rain-drenched roads, everything that could go wrong, did go wrong.
From the first specimen caught near the estuary of the Chalumna River eastern South Africa to the second specimen caught near the Comoran Islands, between the northern tip of Madagascar and the African mainland, four years went by.
The second half of the book reads more like a love story.
Scientists from over the world wanted to have a coelacanth for themselves. To dissect it, to study it, to become as famous as the fish in their hands.
The author, one of the lucky few, came to do just that. In the further chapters of the book, he could describe the catches from the Comoro’s, place the increasing knowledge like pieces of a puzzle together.
Where do they live? How do they live: Swimming and feeding? Physiology and behavior. Reproduction? Coelacanth’s relations to the origin of the Tetrapod. Population size, Conservation, and the Future of Latimeria.
The story ends on a somber note:
As it is not comestible, it has no other predators but scientists.
Of all the endangered and threatened species in the world, Latimeria chalumnae may well be the only organism whose extinction could be caused by scientists.
February 1, 2015
On December 22, 1938, Marjorie Courtney-Latimer, curator of the small natural history museum of East London on the southeastern tip of South Africa, was called to the docks by a friendly trawler captain. Courtney-Latimer had a standing arrangement with local fisherman. They would call her if they discovered any unusual specimens so she could add them to the museum. She was stunned by what she saw on the deck. This fish was unlike anything seen before. It was about 5 feet long, a very strange blue color, and was reported to have been still alive when pulled out of the net; extremely unusual for a fish at the bottom of the net which would have normally asphyxiated. The fish's anatomical construction was also peculiar. It had, in addition to a double tail J two strangely paired fins in front which flopped in all directions very much like legs.
This discovery was to become one of the most exciting in recorded zoological history. Keith S. Thomson, a renowned biologist, tells the fascinating story of this discovery and the research on the coelacanth (pronounced seal-uh-canth.) Fortunately, Courtney-Latimer sent the fish to James L. B. Smith, a professor of chemistry, but a lover of fish who after the war became a celebrated ichthyologist. Smith thought he recognized the fish as a coelacanth, known previously only from the fossil record and thought to have been extinct for many millions of years. The coelacanth was most important, as it was a close relative of an ancient ancestor of land-dwelling vertebrates. Thomson defines "living fossil" (an apparent oxymoron) as the living representative of an ancient group of organisms one would expect to be extinct, formerly distributed over a large geographical area, but now restricted and probably rare or uncommon. The Australian lungfish is an example of living fossil, as is the horseshoe crab. Living fossils are usually quite primitive in comparison with other organisms. (Do you suppose the KKK could be considered a living fossil?) One particularly curious feature about coelacanths is they have only been found near the Comores Islands, a very recent geological structure dating back only some 7,000-8000 years. How did the coelacanths survive if they need the kind of environment that only seems to surround relatively recent geological structures?
This book is a mesmerizing account of the discovery and the tawdry battle among scientists to get their hands on specimens for research. It's also a most elucidating revelation of the scientific method: the building of an hypothesis, testing, refutation, and discarding those theories which are erroneous. Ironically, science now finds itself in the awkward position of perhaps causing the extinction of a unique and valuable species precisely because it is so interesting. The fish has no commercial value in the usual sense, and local fisherman only search for it now because of the relatively enormous sums scientists are willing to pay to obtain one. Some scientists, usually the ones who already have a specimen,) worry that this predatory interest will reduce the population to a point where it will no longer be able to reproduce.
This discovery was to become one of the most exciting in recorded zoological history. Keith S. Thomson, a renowned biologist, tells the fascinating story of this discovery and the research on the coelacanth (pronounced seal-uh-canth.) Fortunately, Courtney-Latimer sent the fish to James L. B. Smith, a professor of chemistry, but a lover of fish who after the war became a celebrated ichthyologist. Smith thought he recognized the fish as a coelacanth, known previously only from the fossil record and thought to have been extinct for many millions of years. The coelacanth was most important, as it was a close relative of an ancient ancestor of land-dwelling vertebrates. Thomson defines "living fossil" (an apparent oxymoron) as the living representative of an ancient group of organisms one would expect to be extinct, formerly distributed over a large geographical area, but now restricted and probably rare or uncommon. The Australian lungfish is an example of living fossil, as is the horseshoe crab. Living fossils are usually quite primitive in comparison with other organisms. (Do you suppose the KKK could be considered a living fossil?) One particularly curious feature about coelacanths is they have only been found near the Comores Islands, a very recent geological structure dating back only some 7,000-8000 years. How did the coelacanths survive if they need the kind of environment that only seems to surround relatively recent geological structures?
This book is a mesmerizing account of the discovery and the tawdry battle among scientists to get their hands on specimens for research. It's also a most elucidating revelation of the scientific method: the building of an hypothesis, testing, refutation, and discarding those theories which are erroneous. Ironically, science now finds itself in the awkward position of perhaps causing the extinction of a unique and valuable species precisely because it is so interesting. The fish has no commercial value in the usual sense, and local fisherman only search for it now because of the relatively enormous sums scientists are willing to pay to obtain one. Some scientists, usually the ones who already have a specimen,) worry that this predatory interest will reduce the population to a point where it will no longer be able to reproduce.
September 13, 2021
I read this for extra credit in AP Biology. It was excruciating to read, and I fell asleep multiple times, but that’s not the authors’ fault. The writing style was fun, and it felt sort of like a (VERY) long lecture. In the end, it was a highly informative book that taught me much (borderline unnecessary) information about Coelacanths .
August 16, 2012
"Living Fossil" combines a narrative of scientific discovery with a discussion of evolutionary origins, physiology, and conservation. The books is a combination of Steinbeck's "Log From the Sea of Cortez" with Shubin's "Your Inner Fish". Having purchased this book on a whim at a used book store, I was really surprised by how much I enjoyed it. I would highly recommend the book to anyone who enjoyed the above mentioned books or to anyone with an interest in fish and/or aquatic biology.
August 27, 2017
I was excited to see this book on my bookshelf, as I did a school report on the coelacanth - the prehistoric fish miraculously rediscovered in the 1930s - when I was about nine. When I opened the book, I found a letter from my father to my sister, from whom I must have inherited it. Dad had a coelacanth connection. Here's his letter:
November 12, 1991. Dear Jane,
I noticed this book and decided to buy it for you. I think that you will find it quite interesting but I must admit that in buying it I was really indulging myself. You see, I know this professor, J.L.B. Smith, and he showed me his coelacanth.
I opened an office for the company of G.J.Wevall (Pty) Ltd in Cape Town in January 1951. My territory was the entire Cape Province and every three months I would drive the 700 miles up the coast to East London and work my way back to Cape Town seeing chemical customers.
Prof. Smith was one of my customers, a rather small one but I would drop in to see him when I drove through Grahamstown. He bought Rotenone and Cube Root from us. He would take these products on his research trips. When the tide was out, he would go out to exposed reefs where there would be pools of seawater trapping fish. He would spray the stuff onto the surface of the water and shortly the fish would lose consciousness and float to the top. He would select his specimens and move on. The fish would recover. A sort of Micky Finn.
Your mother and I were married in September 1952 and I think that I made my next car trip early in the new year. I saw Prof. Smith and he was on top of the world. He took me through to his lab and showed me the coelacanth. It was in a small tank of formalin. Strange looking creature with a body much too stocky to my mind for a fish.
I couldn't pass up this opportunity to tell you about it.
Love from Dad.
In the book itself, you learn the story of the fish my father saw. It was only the second coelacanth ever identified. It was caught by fishermen off the Comoros Islands on December 20, 1952, fourteen years after the initial coelacanth had been caught off South Africa and identified by Professor Smith of Rhodes University College. Flyers had been put up in fishing villages to let people know that this was a valuable fish. When the Comoros fish was identified, a friend of Professor Smith sent him a telegram at the same time that Comoros officials were trying to inform the French government. (Comoros was a French colony at the time.) Smith convinced the president of South Africa to loan him a plane and flew off immediately to fetch the coelacanth. Meanwhile, the French response was delayed because everyone was on Christmas holidays. By the time the French realized what they had, Smith and his fish were already back in South Africa. After that, the French refused to allow other Comoros coelecanths to leave French possession for many years, so just as well Smith grabbed it when he did. My father must have seen the fish only a few weeks later. No wonder Smith was on top of the world.
As to the book itself - it is thoroughly readable and I learned a lot about how they determine how a fish lives from its biology.
November 12, 1991. Dear Jane,
I noticed this book and decided to buy it for you. I think that you will find it quite interesting but I must admit that in buying it I was really indulging myself. You see, I know this professor, J.L.B. Smith, and he showed me his coelacanth.
I opened an office for the company of G.J.Wevall (Pty) Ltd in Cape Town in January 1951. My territory was the entire Cape Province and every three months I would drive the 700 miles up the coast to East London and work my way back to Cape Town seeing chemical customers.
Prof. Smith was one of my customers, a rather small one but I would drop in to see him when I drove through Grahamstown. He bought Rotenone and Cube Root from us. He would take these products on his research trips. When the tide was out, he would go out to exposed reefs where there would be pools of seawater trapping fish. He would spray the stuff onto the surface of the water and shortly the fish would lose consciousness and float to the top. He would select his specimens and move on. The fish would recover. A sort of Micky Finn.
Your mother and I were married in September 1952 and I think that I made my next car trip early in the new year. I saw Prof. Smith and he was on top of the world. He took me through to his lab and showed me the coelacanth. It was in a small tank of formalin. Strange looking creature with a body much too stocky to my mind for a fish.
I couldn't pass up this opportunity to tell you about it.
Love from Dad.
In the book itself, you learn the story of the fish my father saw. It was only the second coelacanth ever identified. It was caught by fishermen off the Comoros Islands on December 20, 1952, fourteen years after the initial coelacanth had been caught off South Africa and identified by Professor Smith of Rhodes University College. Flyers had been put up in fishing villages to let people know that this was a valuable fish. When the Comoros fish was identified, a friend of Professor Smith sent him a telegram at the same time that Comoros officials were trying to inform the French government. (Comoros was a French colony at the time.) Smith convinced the president of South Africa to loan him a plane and flew off immediately to fetch the coelacanth. Meanwhile, the French response was delayed because everyone was on Christmas holidays. By the time the French realized what they had, Smith and his fish were already back in South Africa. After that, the French refused to allow other Comoros coelecanths to leave French possession for many years, so just as well Smith grabbed it when he did. My father must have seen the fish only a few weeks later. No wonder Smith was on top of the world.
As to the book itself - it is thoroughly readable and I learned a lot about how they determine how a fish lives from its biology.
November 30, 2017
Biology has never been one of my strongest interests, but now and then I dive into it a bit. When Bookbub mentioned Living Fossil was on sale for some stupidly low price I thought I'd pick it up.
It's a good book. Pretty readable and interesting. The writing's not always as coherent as one would like — a few places where the author seemingly switches subjects in the middle of a paragraph and the like — but good on the whole.
But you should be aware how dated this book is. When published 26 years ago, the one and only extant species of coelacanth, Latimeria chalumnae, had been discovered off South Africa about 60 years before, and since then all the other catches had been made near the Comores islands. But since 1991 L. chalumnae has been found near Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, South Africa, and Madagascar. Of course, in those 26 years much more research has been done and we have better tools for such things as DNA sequencing. Maybe most significantly, in 1998 a second living species, L. menadoensis, was discovered in Indonesia. Indeed it's estimated there are several thousand L. menadoensis in the world, while there probably are fewer than 500 of the critically endangered L. chalumnae alive.
So if Thomson were writing a coelacanth book today it would be a very, very different book. Unfortunately I haven't found any post-1998 books (for a general adult audience) on the subject other than one by Peter L. Forey from 2009. From what little I see about it on Google Books, I have doubts as to how good that book might be, but it's a moot point since it seems to be out of print and not readily available. Does that indicate there's no market for an up to date book on the subject? I hope not, but until and unless one appears, this probably is as good a resource, at least on the discovery and early research on L. chalumnae, as any.
It's a good book. Pretty readable and interesting. The writing's not always as coherent as one would like — a few places where the author seemingly switches subjects in the middle of a paragraph and the like — but good on the whole.
But you should be aware how dated this book is. When published 26 years ago, the one and only extant species of coelacanth, Latimeria chalumnae, had been discovered off South Africa about 60 years before, and since then all the other catches had been made near the Comores islands. But since 1991 L. chalumnae has been found near Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, South Africa, and Madagascar. Of course, in those 26 years much more research has been done and we have better tools for such things as DNA sequencing. Maybe most significantly, in 1998 a second living species, L. menadoensis, was discovered in Indonesia. Indeed it's estimated there are several thousand L. menadoensis in the world, while there probably are fewer than 500 of the critically endangered L. chalumnae alive.
So if Thomson were writing a coelacanth book today it would be a very, very different book. Unfortunately I haven't found any post-1998 books (for a general adult audience) on the subject other than one by Peter L. Forey from 2009. From what little I see about it on Google Books, I have doubts as to how good that book might be, but it's a moot point since it seems to be out of print and not readily available. Does that indicate there's no market for an up to date book on the subject? I hope not, but until and unless one appears, this probably is as good a resource, at least on the discovery and early research on L. chalumnae, as any.
August 19, 2019
Once upon a time, archaeologists knew about an early type of "lobe-finned" fish they named the coelacanth, which was thought to have been extinct since the end of the Cretaceous. Then in 1938, a local museum curator was walking through a fish market off the coast of South Africa, and saw something that turned out to be a (recently) living specimen.
A friend lent this book to me. The writing style is clear. I found it a bit technical in some places, which means it isn't a fast read, but I enjoyed the "deep dive" into fish evolution's turns & twists.
This was published in 1991, which makes it 28 years old. A lot has happened with coelacanth research since then; that's why I've given this 4 stars instead of 5. If there were an updated, current edition I'd jump on it! Meantime, I'll look for other books to fill me in on more recent developments. Even with this caveat, it's still a great story and worth reading.
A friend lent this book to me. The writing style is clear. I found it a bit technical in some places, which means it isn't a fast read, but I enjoyed the "deep dive" into fish evolution's turns & twists.
This was published in 1991, which makes it 28 years old. A lot has happened with coelacanth research since then; that's why I've given this 4 stars instead of 5. If there were an updated, current edition I'd jump on it! Meantime, I'll look for other books to fill me in on more recent developments. Even with this caveat, it's still a great story and worth reading.
January 12, 2020
This 1991 book unfortunately lies in the dead zone between the epochal discoveries of the coelacanth in 1938 and 1952 by Courtenay-Latimer and J.L.B. Smith and the results of the last 30 years. Smith's account "Old Fourlegs" is a classic scientific quest, written with flair and excitement. Thomsen's book provides a useful summary of coelacanth results to 1991, but often written like a first year biology text. Two notable changes since 1991 are the discovery of two more populations of coelacanth and the availability of coelacanth videos, easily found on YouTube. You can see for yourself how the living fish looks and swims.
October 4, 2020
The coelacanth is a fish which gets 6 feet long and was already existing when dinosaurs populated our earth. It's a vertebrate.
For many years scientists and zoologists believed him to be extinct, but in 1938 a woman who lived and worked in South Africa discovered a dead coelacanth.
Then a few more coelacanths have been found in the 1950's and after.
Thomson wrote a fascinating book about the fossil fish. I've read this book some 25 years ago for the first time and took it to Nantucket last weekend to read it on the ferry.
Fascinating story!
For many years scientists and zoologists believed him to be extinct, but in 1938 a woman who lived and worked in South Africa discovered a dead coelacanth.
Then a few more coelacanths have been found in the 1950's and after.
Thomson wrote a fascinating book about the fossil fish. I've read this book some 25 years ago for the first time and took it to Nantucket last weekend to read it on the ferry.
Fascinating story!
August 5, 2020
A great summary of what we know about the friendly neighborhood coelacanth.
March 5, 2021
hab ich meine leseblues überwunden und sofort danach mit dark angefangen?
September 21, 2025
i love fish
March 26, 2018
Quite interesting for the most part. If considered as science writing, this is a 5 star book. I have always been fascinated by the story of the (re)discovery of this ancient fish. This book does a good job of telling the semi-comic efforts of a scientist and a museum curator in a very remote part of South Africa to get the world's attention when they realized what this fish was.
September 2, 2016
The coelacanth is a prehistoric fish thought to be extinct since the times of the dinosaurs until one is caught in 1938 off the southeast coast of Africa. This sets in motion a social and political drama as science clashes with human ego and international relations in attempts to learn what can be learned. This species is also unique in its hypothesized links between fish and land animals. The human drama was the most interesting part for me - Thomson is a renowned biologist and I have to admit that there were many sections that were textbook-style dry. In truth, this was the highest rated book on my to-read list, but I struggled to get through it. It wasn't even the best marine-related non-fiction I read this week (In the Heart of the Sea). I think you have to have a very strong interest in marine biology or evolutionary biology to truly appreciate all aspects of this book.
January 20, 2016
The amazing story of the discovery of the first live Coelocanth, thought to have been extinct since the time of the dinosaurs, and the attempts to study the beautiful and mysterious fish in the time since.
January 6, 2016
In places this is, of necessity, fairly dry. But the effort to discover more about this fish is fascinating.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews