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The lobe-finned fish is one of the most ancient fish species, which were considered extinct 70 million years ago. But in 1938 there was a sensation - scientists accidentally found out that one of the oldest of the ancient lobe-finned fish is still alive on Earth. They called this "resurrected" from sea depths living "fossil" fish coelacanth, studied, described and taken under protection.
The lobe-finned fish (Crossopterygii) - the superorder of lobe-finned fish - are oldest group fish. Until the beginning of the 20th century, the lobe-finned fish were considered extinct in ancient times - 70 million years ago, but in 1938 they caught an outlandish fish and scientists recognized it as an ancient lobe-finned fish. Latimeria, as the fish was called, is the only representative of the lobe-finned fish that has survived to this day. Coelacanth lives only in the Comoros region at a depth of 400-1000 meters.
Loop-finned fish appeared 406-360 million years ago and died out about 70 million years ago, scientists say. Their fossils have been found in marine and fresh waters all over the planet. Scientists distinguish 17 families from the order of lobe-finned fish. The fish had a length of 7 cm to 5 meters, were inactive. The lobe-finned fish had numerous conical teeth, which makes them serious predators.
Most part of time lobe-finned fish spent on the bottom, along which they moved with the help of fins.
The unusual structure of the fins gave the name to the fish. As a result of moving along the bottom, these fish developed powerful muscles at the base of the fins. The skeleton of fleshy fins consisted of several segments branched in the shape of a brush, so scientists gave the name to these "fossil" fish - "brush-finned".
Modern scientists believe that the first amphibians descended from freshwater lobefins, which came to land and gave rise to terrestrial vertebrates. Such a version of the exit of living creatures from the sea to land in the scientific world is not unambiguous and not indisputable, but the fact that a number of lobe-finned fish, for example, Tiktaalik - Tiktaalik, had a number of transitional features that bring them closer to amphibians is a proven fact. Freshwater lobe-finned fish, for example, had a double breath: gill and lung.
Science highly appreciated the merits of the crossopterygians in the evolution of terrestrial animals: they ran along the bottom of the oceans, transformed, turned on their "second wind", went ashore and gave us landmen a chance. But, having given terrestrial life to other creatures, they themselves, like dinosaurs, became extinct.
A real sensation was a live lobe-finned fish, which was accidentally caught in 1938 in South Africa at the mouth of the Halumne River at a depth of 70 m. The fish had a length of about 150 centimeters and weighed 57 kilograms. Professor J. Smith attributed it to the coelacanths and in 1939 published a description of the new species. A new species of fish related to extinct "fossil" fish was named coelacanth(Latimeria chalumnae), in honor of the curator of the museum, Miss Courtenay-Latimer, who handed over the first fish caught to scientists. Later it turned out that local fishermen, it turns out, had already caught lobe-finned fish and used them for food. 
After a sensational find, everyone rushed to look for lobe-finned fish. And found! A population of 500 Loop-finned fish was discovered near the Comoros. Nowadays, fishing is allowed only for scientific purposes, and only about 200 specimens have been caught. People protect the lobe-finned fish: it would be a crime to destroy a fish that was considered extinct and “resurrected” ancient origin. Latimeria is protected and listed in the International Red Book.
Coelacanths live at a depth of 180-220 m. Like their distant ancestors, coelacanths are convinced predators, and in confirmation of this, they have many sharp teeth in the oral cavity. During the day, they usually hide in shelters, and at night they hunt fish and squid. The coelacanths themselves can become victims of hunters who are "predatory" to them - large sharks.
The largest specimens of these coelacanths caught are 1.8 m long and weigh 95 kg. Scientists report that coelacanths grow slowly, but live, fortunately, for a long time. These living "relics" are not much different from fossil coelacanths of the Mesozoic - their extinct counterparts. Fish have a powerful tail and strong movable paired fins, but the skull is filled with a fat-like substance, and the brains in it occupy no more than 1/1000 of the volume.
The coelacanth has 7 fins, 6 of them are strong, strong, well developed, resembling limbs (paws). During the movement, the coelacanth stands on these paired fins and, turning them over like paws, moves. However, coelacanths lead a sedentary lifestyle, being almost all the time at the bottom of the sea.
Coelacanths are ovoviviparous. Their bright orange eggs, 9 cm in diameter, weigh up to 300 g. Pregnancy in coelacanths lasts about 13 months, and large eggs have a characteristic bright orange color. The body length of newborn cubs reaches 33 cm.
There is a degenerated lung in the body cavity of the coelacanth, but coelacanths completely lack internal nostrils and cannot breathe atmospheric oxygen. The entire body of these lobe-finned fish is covered with scales - bony plates of a rhombic or rounded shape.
Scientists studying coelacanths, the descendants of the most ancient fish, came to the conclusion that the ancient lobe-finned fish in their development went in 2 directions. The first way is the emergence of coelacanths. This line has survived to our time and appeared before us in the form of coelacanth. Other crossopterans adapted to breathing in the air and crawled onto land on their strong mobile fins, probably their descendants are terrestrial vertebrates.
These fish do not tolerate bright daylight and life outside the depths of the sea.
However, in 1972, scientists managed to relocate a guest from the "past" to a research laboratory on the island of Madagascar.
It was a small coelocanth that weighed 10 kg and had a length of 90 cm. A unique living specimen of the lobe-finned fish lives in an aquarium in Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark.
In 1986, Japanese scientists showed the coelacanth on television.
A unique film was shot: the shooting was carried out at a depth of more than 50m in the Indian Ocean near the Comoros.
The lobe-finned fish is one of the most ancient fish species, which were considered extinct 70 million years ago. But in 1938 there was a sensation - scientists accidentally found out that one of the oldest of the ancient lobe-finned fish is still alive on Earth. They called this living “fossil” fish “resurrected” from the depths of the sea, studied it, described it and took it under protection.
The lobe-finned fishes (Crossopterygii) are the oldest group of fishes. Until the beginning of the 20th century, the lobe-finned fish were considered extinct in ancient times - 70 million years ago, but in 1938 they caught an outlandish fish and scientists recognized it as an ancient lobe-finned fish. Latimeria, as the fish was called, is the only representative of the lobe-finned fish that has survived to this day. Coelacanth lives only in the Comoros region at a depth of 400-1000 meters.
Loop-finned fish appeared 406-360 million years ago and died out about 70 million years ago, scientists say. Their fossil remains have been found in marine and fresh waters all over the planet. Scientists distinguish 17 families from the order of lobe-finned fish. The fish had a length of 7 cm to 5 meters, were inactive. The lobe-finned fish had numerous conical teeth, which makes them serious predators.
Most of the time, lobe-finned fish spent on the bottom, along which they moved with the help of fins.
The unusual structure of the fins gave the name to the fish. As a result of moving along the bottom, these fish developed powerful muscles at the base of the fins. The skeleton of fleshy fins consisted of several segments branched in the shape of a brush, so scientists gave the name to these "fossil" fish - "brush-finned".
Modern scientists believe that the first amphibians descended from freshwater lobefins, which came to land and gave rise to terrestrial vertebrates. Such a version of the exit of living creatures from the sea to land in the scientific world is not unambiguous and not indisputable, but the fact that a number of lobe-finned fish, for example, Tiktaalik - Tiktaalik, had a number of transitional features that bring them closer to amphibians is a proven fact. Freshwater lobe-finned fish, for example, had a double breath: gill and lung.
Science highly appreciated the merits of the crossopterygians in the evolution of terrestrial animals: they ran along the bottom of the oceans, transformed, turned on their "second wind", went ashore and gave us landmen a chance. But, having given terrestrial life to other creatures, they themselves, like dinosaurs, became extinct.
A real sensation was a live lobe-finned fish, which was accidentally caught in 1938 in South Africa at the mouth of the Halumne River at a depth of 70 m. The fish had a length of about 150 centimeters and weighed 57 kilograms. Professor J. Smith attributed it to the coelacanths and in 1939 published a description of the new species. A new species of fish related to extinct "fossil" fish was named coelacanth(Latimeria chalumnae), in honor of the curator of the museum, Miss Courtenay-Latimer, who handed over the first fish caught to scientists. Later it turned out that local fishermen, it turns out, had already caught lobe-finned fish and used them for food.
After a sensational find, everyone rushed to look for lobe-finned fish. And found! A population of 500 Loop-finned fish was discovered near the Comoros. Nowadays, fishing is allowed only for scientific purposes, and only about 200 specimens have been caught. People take care of the lobe-finned fish: it would be a crime to destroy the fish of ancient origin, which was considered extinct and "resurrected". Latimeria is protected and listed in the International Red Book.
Coelacanths live at a depth of 180-220 m. Like their distant ancestors, coelacanths are convinced predators, and in confirmation of this, they have many sharp teeth in the oral cavity. During the day, they usually hide in shelters, and at night they hunt fish and squid. The coelacanths themselves can become victims of hunters who are "predatory" to them - large sharks.
The largest specimens of these coelacanths caught are 1.8 m long and weigh 95 kg. Scientists report that coelacanths grow slowly, but live, fortunately, for a long time. These living "relics" are not much different from fossil coelacanths of the Mesozoic - their extinct counterparts. Fish have a powerful tail and strong movable paired fins, but the skull is filled with a fat-like substance, and the brains in it occupy no more than 1/1000 of the volume.
The coelacanth has 7 fins, 6 of them are strong, strong, well developed, resembling limbs (paws). During the movement, the coelacanth stands on these paired fins and, turning them over like paws, moves. However, coelacanths lead a sedentary lifestyle, being almost all the time at the bottom of the sea.
Coelacanths are ovoviviparous. Their bright orange eggs, 9 cm in diameter, weigh up to 300 g. Pregnancy in coelacanths lasts about 13 months, and large eggs have a characteristic bright orange color. The body length of newborn cubs reaches 33 cm.
There is a degenerated lung in the body cavity of the coelacanth, but coelacanths completely lack internal nostrils and cannot breathe atmospheric oxygen. The entire body of these lobe-finned fish is covered with scales - bony plates of a rhombic or rounded shape.
Scientists studying coelacanths, the descendants of the most ancient fish, came to the conclusion that the ancient lobe-finned fish in their development went in 2 directions. The first way is the emergence of coelacanths. This line has survived to our time and appeared before us in the form of coelacanth. Other crossopterans adapted to breathing in the air and crawled onto land on their strong mobile fins, probably their descendants are terrestrial vertebrates.
These fish do not tolerate bright daylight and life outside the depths of the sea. However, in 1972, scientists managed to relocate a guest from the "past" to a research laboratory on the island of Madagascar. It was a small coelocanth that weighed 10 kg and had a length of 90 cm. A unique living specimen of the lobe-finned fish lives in an aquarium in Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark. In 1986, Japanese scientists showed the coelacanth on television. A unique film was shot: the shooting was carried out at a depth of more than 50m in the Indian Ocean near the Comoros.
A close connection with water, similarities with fish in the early stages of development indicate the origin of amphibians from ancient fish. It remains to be clarified from which particular group of fish the amphibians originate and what force drove them out of the aquatic environment and forced them to switch to terrestrial existence. Modern lungfish were considered amphibious, and then they began to see them as a link between amphibians and real fish.
The appearance of the most ancient amphibians refers to the end Devonian period, and flourishing to the Carboniferous.
Initially, amphibians were represented by small forms. The oldest fossil amphibians of the Carboniferous period resemble our newts in general body shape, but differ from all modern amphibians in the strong development of the skin skeleton, especially on the head. Therefore, they were identified as a special subclass of stegocephals.
The structure of the skull is the most characteristic feature of the stegocephalians. It consists of numerous bones, tightly closing with each other and leaving a hole only for the eyes, nostrils, and there is another unpaired hole on the crown of the head. In most stegocephalians, the ventral side of the body was covered with a shell of scales sitting in rows. The axial skeleton is poorly developed: the notochord was preserved and the vertebrae consisted of separate elements that were not yet soldered into one continuous whole.
According to the theory of Academician I.I. Schmalhausen, amphibians, and therefore all terrestrial vertebrates, descended from ancient freshwater lobe-finned fish. An intermediate form between fish and amphibians is called ichthyostegi.
Ancient amphibians were confined to bodies of water to a greater extent than their modern descendants. In the aquatic environment, they were kept by a heavy bone skull and a weak spine. As a result, the group of stegocephalians, which gave rise to both the later amphibians and the most ancient reptiles, ceased to exist, and the further development of the class went in the direction of unloading the bone skull, eliminating bone formations on the skin and ossifying the spine. At present, the process of historical development of amphibians has led to the formation of three sharply isolated groups - the orders of caudate and tailless amphibians already known to us and a very peculiar order of legless, or caecilians, in which there are about 50 species confined to humid tropical countries of both hemispheres. This is a specialized group, whose representatives "went underground": they live in the soil, feeding on various living creatures there, and appearance resemble earthworms.
In the modern fauna, the most prosperous group is the tailless amphibians (about 2100 species). Within this group, further development went in different directions: some forms remained closely related to aquatic environment(green frogs), others turned out to be more adapted to terrestrial existence (brown frogs and especially toads), others switched to life on trees (frogs), thus dispersing in the life communities (biocenoses) of our modern nature.
Detachment legless (≈60 species).
Feeding on various small living creatures, amphibians exterminate a significant number of insects and their larvae. Therefore, frogs and toads can be included in the category of crop protectors and friends of gardeners and gardeners.
Detachment caudate (280 species
Ancient lobe-feathers and their descendants. Crossopterygii were the most numerous of the bony fish Devonian. They appear to be close to their ancestors lungfish and what deserves special attention, according to all data, as already mentioned, amphibians originated from them, and consequently, the entire trunk of terrestrial vertebrates.
The early lobe-finned fish had a spindle-shaped body and were freshwater predators, reaching almost 1 m in length. The most characteristic feature was the structure of paired limbs, which had a well-developed fleshy base, from which rays departed, supporting the swimming membrane. The internal skeleton of these fins consisted of a segmented axis, to one side of which radials were attached, i.e., the paired fins were of the uniserial type. The tail was heterocercal, the scales were cosmoid. There were two dorsal fins (a characteristic difference from paleoniscids). The presence of internal nostrils indicates that they were sneaking up on prey. There were also poisonous teeth, at the base of which there was a gland that secreted poison, a spatter, a hole for the parietal organ, and large teeth with characteristic enamel folds deeply protruding into the dentin (labyrinthodont teeth).
early lungfish(Dipnoi) show great similarity with the ancient crossopterans, they also had two dorsal one anal and heterocercal caudal fins, cosmoid scales, a generally similar arrangement of the integumentary bones of the cranium, internal nostrils. But, on the other hand, the upper jaw fused with the cranium (autostyly), the intermaxillary, maxillary and dentary bones were already lost and there were palatine teeth characteristic of all lungfish.plates. Finally, the paired fins were of the biserial type. It should be noted, however, that some of the later Loopfins had fins transitional to biserial.
(according to Abel), sequentially from bottom to top: Dipterus valensiensis (Lower Devonian), Dipterus macropterus (Middle Devonian), Scaumenacia curta (Upper Devonian), Phaneropleuron andersoni (Upper Devonian), Uronema lobatus (Lower Coal), Neoceratodus forsteri (modern)
The evolution of lungfish has now been traced very fully, and we have a complete series linking the Lower Devonian Dipterus with the modern ceratod. Apparently, the division of the lobe-finned and lungfish proceeded depending on various ways diet: the lobe-finned fish-eating predators, while the lungfish switched to feeding mainly on crustaceans and mollusks, in connection with which their teeth merged into plates, and they turned into modern slow creatures.
Multifeathers (Polypteri). They are unknown in the fossil state, but their structure is very peculiar. Therefore, only more or less probable assumptions can be made about their origin. The presence of lungs and the shape of the integumentary bones of the skull bring them closer to the crossopterans, from the ancient representatives of which, according to many researchers, they originate. However, a number of authors, relying mainly on the absence of choanae in multifeathers and the presence of ganoid scales, bring them closer to paleoniscids into the common group Paleopterygii.
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On New Year's Day 1939, an old fishing trawler was fishing in coastal waters South Africa, near the city of East London-don. The catch was poor, and Captain Gosen decided to try his luck on the shallows near the mouth of the Chalumna River.
The trawl was pulled onto the deck. He brought about one and a half tons of various small things, two tons of sharks and ... one strange fish, clad in a shell of thick scales. The fins of the fish resembled paws. Only the first dorsal fin was the same as in other fish.
And the tail of the outlandish fish was unusual: not two, but three-lobed! The fishermen realized that they had caught something very rare and brought their trophy to the local museum of local lore. What happened then, you can learn from the interesting book "Old Quadrupeds", published by Geografgiz in 1962. Science owes its author, Dr. J. Smith, the discovery of the most ancient lobe-finned fish that lived at the dawn of the history of the Earth and died out (so thought) tens of millions years ago. Her name is coelacanth.
The fish had a length of about 150 centimeters and weighed 57 kilograms. Professor J. Smith attributed it to the coelacanths and in 1939 published a description of the new species. A new species of fish related to extinct "fossil" fish was named coelacanth(Latimeria chalumnae), in honor of the curator of the museum, Miss Courtenay-Latimer (well, someone says that in honor of the place where the fish was caught), who handed over the first specimen of fish caught to scientists. Later it turned out that local fishermen, it turns out, had already caught lobe-finned fish and used them for food.
Once upon a time, close relatives of latimeria crawled out onto land, and from these restless "poachers" who violated the laws of nature, all land vertebrates originate: frogs, reptiles, animals, birds, and we are with you.
The fish crawled out of the water and began to live on land. The paw-like fins on the belly and chest of the lobe-finned fish gradually turned into real limbs.
What reason prompted the fish, which, presumably, felt quite well in the water, to leave their native element? Lack of oxygen? No, there was enough oxygen. True, 300 million years ago, some lobe-finned fish no longer lived in the sea, but in freshwater swamps and lakes. But even here, if there was not enough oxygen in the musty water, they could rise to the surface and breathe clean air. After all, lobe-finned fish, in addition to gills, also had primitive lungs. Actually, not even lungs, but a swim bladder that acted as lungs. It filled up periodically. atmospheric air, and its walls were penetrated by numerous blood vessels. Oxygen enters the blood directly from the bladder. So, the lack of oxygen could not be the reason that forced the fish to change their place of residence. Maybe hunger drove them to land? Also not, because the land at that time was more deserted and poor in food than the seas and lakes.
Maybe danger?
No, and not a danger, since lobe-finned fish were the largest and most powerful predators in primeval lakes
The desire to stay in the water is what prompted the fish to leave the water! It sounds paradoxical, but this is precisely the conclusion that scientists have come to after carefully studying all possible reasons. The fact is that in that distant era, shallow land reservoirs often dried up. Lakes turned into swamps, swamps into puddles. Finally, puddles dried up under the scorching rays of the sun. The lobe-finned fish, which, on their amazing fins, were able to crawl well along the bottom so as not to die, had to look for new shelters, new puddles filled with water.
In search of water, the fish had to crawl along the coast for considerable distances. And those who crawled well, who were better adapted to land image life. So gradually, thanks to the harsh selection of fish that were looking for water, they found a new home. They became inhabitants of two elements - both water and land. There were amphibians, or amphibians, and from them reptiles, then birds and mammals. And finally, a man walked across the planet - a distant descendant of restless fish.
Loop-finned fish appeared 406-360 million years ago and died out about 70 million years ago, scientists say. Their fossil remains have been found in marine and fresh waters all over the planet. Scientists distinguish 17 families from the order of lobe-finned fish. The fish had a length of 7 cm to 5 meters, were inactive. The lobe-finned fish had numerous conical teeth, which makes them serious predators.
Most of the time, lobe-finned fish spent on the bottom, along which they moved with the help of fins.
The unusual structure of the fins gave the name to the fish. As a result of moving along the bottom, these fish developed powerful muscles at the base of the fins. The skeleton of fleshy fins consisted of several segments branched in the shape of a brush, so scientists gave the name to these "fossil" fish - "brush-finned".
Modern scientists believe that the first amphibians descended from freshwater lobefins, which came to land and gave rise to terrestrial vertebrates. Such a version of the exit of living beings from the sea to land in the scientific world is not unambiguous and not indisputable, but the fact that a number of lobe-finned fish, for example, Tiktaalik - Tiktaalik, had a number of transitional features that bring them closer to amphibians is a proven fact. Freshwater lobe-finned fish, for example, had a double breath: gill and lung.
After a sensational find, everyone rushed to look for lobe-finned fish. And found! A population of 500 Loop-finned fish was discovered near the Comoros. Nowadays, fishing is allowed only for scientific purposes, and only about 200 specimens have been caught. People take care of the lobe-finned fish: it would be a crime to destroy the fish of ancient origin, which was considered extinct and "resurrected". Latimeria is protected and listed in the International Red Book.
Coelacanths live at a depth of 180-220 m. Like their distant ancestors, coelacanths are convinced predators, and in confirmation of this, they have many sharp teeth in the oral cavity. During the day, they usually hide in shelters, and at night they hunt fish and squid. The coelacanths themselves can become victims of hunters who are “predatory” to them - large sharks.
The largest specimens of these coelacanths caught are 1.8 m long and weigh 95 kg. Scientists report that coelacanths grow slowly, but live, fortunately, for a long time. These living "relics" are not much different from fossil coelacanths of the Mesozoic - their extinct counterparts. Fish have a powerful tail and strong movable paired fins, but the skull is filled with a fat-like substance, and the brains in it occupy no more than 1/1000 of the volume.
The coelacanth has 7 fins, 6 of them are strong, strong, well developed, resembling limbs (paws). During the movement, the coelacanth stands on these paired fins and, turning them over like paws, moves. However, coelacanths lead a sedentary lifestyle, being almost all the time at the bottom of the sea.
Coelacanths are ovoviviparous. Their bright orange eggs, 9 cm in diameter, weigh up to 300 g. Pregnancy in coelacanths lasts about 13 months, and large eggs have a characteristic bright orange color. The body length of newborn cubs reaches 33 cm.
There is a degenerated lung in the body cavity of the coelacanth, but coelacanths completely lack internal nostrils and cannot breathe atmospheric oxygen. The entire body of these lobe-finned fish is covered with scales - bony plates of a rhombic or rounded shape.
Scientists studying coelacanths, the descendants of the most ancient fish, came to the conclusion that the ancient lobe-finned fish in their development went in 2 directions. The first way is the emergence of coelacanths. This line has survived to our time and appeared before us in the form of coelacanth. Other crossopterans adapted to breathing in the air and crawled onto land on their strong mobile fins, probably their descendants are terrestrial vertebrates.
These fish do not tolerate bright daylight and life outside the depths of the sea. However, in 1972, scientists managed to relocate a guest from the "past" to a research laboratory on the island of Madagascar. It was a small coelocanth that weighed 10 kg and had a length of 90 cm. A unique living specimen of the lobe-finned fish lives in an aquarium in Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark. In 1986, Japanese scientists showed the coelacanth on television. A unique film was shot: the shooting was carried out at a depth of more than 50m in the Indian Ocean near the Comoros.
Many people know that most of the representatives of the animal world on our planet appeared long before homo sapiens. For example, caiman turtles appeared on Earth even before dinosaurs. The earth is inhabited by millions of varieties of living beings. So different - animals remain faithful companions of people.
In 1952, in the waters of the island of Anjouan, which is part of the Comoros archipelago, another living specimen of the coelacanth was caught. Then it turned out that the Comorians have hunted this fish since ancient times and call it "gombessa". And for them, it is not a curiosity at all!
Thus, the area of the prehistoric lobe-finned fish resurrected from oblivion was established - the western part of the Indian Ocean, the northern entrance to the Mozambique Channel. However, these boundaries, as we already know, turned out to be conditional.
A few years later, scientists received actual evidence that the Comorian "gombessa" was once seen in another ocean, off the coast of a completely different continent.
In 1964, the Belgian naturalist Maurice Steiner bought from a Spanish antiquarian a 17th-century silver medallion depicting a coelacanth, reproduced with amazing accuracy. But the most curious thing is that the medallion was not made in the Comoros and not even in Europe. Thousands of miles from African and European shores - in Mexico. And this fact was confirmed for certain - by chemical analysis silver and the establishment of a very characteristic Spanish-American method of chasing and finishing jewelry, which were made precisely in the 17th century and only in the New World.
The French biologist Roman E. was also lucky. In 1993, in the town of Beloksi, Mississippi, just on the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico, he acquired three large dried scales resembling medium-sized flat shells. It seemed that they were extracted from none other than the scaly cover of one of the coelacanths described in detail by Smith in 1938 and 1952. And then there's the "raja-laut", almost like two drops of water similar to the individuals classified by Smith. The only thing that distinguished the "sea king" from the island of Sulawesi from its Comorian relative was the color. The Sulawesian coelacanth had a pronounced brown color with yellowish spots, and not a bluish-steel like the Comoros.
And, finally, according to another French cryptozoologist, Michel Reynal, the area of \u200b\u200bthe Raja-Laut extends much further than the Sulawesi Sea. In any case, about the mysterious fish, according to the descriptions very similar to the coelacanth, Reynamo more than once happened to hear from Filipino fishermen. And this is the Pacific Ocean!
So, the prehistoric representative of the crossopterans is not an accidental and not an incredible find, but a full-fledged inhabitant of the oceans of our time.
And in 2008, off the coast of the Indonesian province of North Sulawesi, a lobe-finned fish was caught - a coelacanth belonging to a species that was considered extinct 60 million years ago. This rare fortune fell into the hands of the fisherman Justinus Lahama and his son.
They kept the caught fish at home for an hour. And after they learned from the neighbors about what a rarity and curiosity it was, the coelacanth was released into a section of the sea fenced with a net, where it lived for another 17 hours. Scientists met this news with great surprise, ITAR-TASS reports. Loop-finned fish live at a depth of 60 meters and outside this environment, as it was previously believed, they can live no more than two hours. The coelacanth caught by Indonesian fishermen was 131 cm long and weighed 51 kg. The first time a lobe-finned fish was caught off the coast of Sulawesi was in 1998.
This happened 60 years after this fish was first caught in South Africa near East London in December 1938 with fins that vaguely resembled human hands or feet. And she also had a semblance of a lung. Before this incident, scientists found only the fossilized remains of the lobe-finned. The first living coelacanth revolutionized paleontology. Four-legged representatives of the terrestrial fauna formed from these creatures 400 million years ago.
But in 2009, Indonesian and Japanese biologists showed unique underwater footage: they managed to film a live prehistoric fish - coelacanth. Judging by the size, this is not an adult, but still a teenager. That is, coelacanths successfully live and breed at very great depths, where they are most comfortable.
sources
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http://www.zooplandia.ru
And I will remind you, maybe not about such an ancient fish, but also interesting - or remember , and the beauty will not leave you indifferent. The original article is on the website InfoGlaz.rf Link to the article from which this copy is made -
