Fossilized imprints of the lobe-finned coelacanth (family Latimeriidae), some dated to 350 million years ago, are common. Because none are less than about 70 million years old, scientists previously considered the fish long extinct. In 1938, however, a fishing trawler brought up a live specimen. Since then more than 100 living coelacanths, remarkably unchanged since the Cretaceous period, have been caught off the coast of South Africa.
The coelacanth is the last of the lobe-finned fishes of the Devonian Period, 350 million years ago. Coelacanths have often been referred to as living fossils because they have a number of anatomical peculiarities only found in fossil fish. Thought to be long extinct, the coelacanth was rediscovered in 1938 off South Africa, and since then has been found in moderate numbers around the Comoro Islands, located between Africa and Madagascar.
