THE AMPHmiA Ql 



only the sldn and head were saved by the local taxi- 

 dermist. 



After an intensive search of fourteen years a second 

 coelacanth (named by Professor Smith, Malania an- 

 jouanae) was caught oflF the coast of the Island of An- 

 jouan in the Comoro group, two hundred miles west of 

 Madagascar, in December, 1952. Subsequently numer- 

 ous living specimens weighing from 70 to 180 pounds 

 have been collected in tibe off-shore waters near the 

 Comoro Islands by French zoologists, and have come to 

 intensive study under Professor Jacques Millot, Director 

 of the Institute of Scientific Research of Madagascar. 



The living coelacanths are crossopterygians, differing 

 from Devonian and later forms only in minor details. One 

 notable feature is that the lobate pectoral and pelvic fins 

 have a wide range of movement; the pelvic fins in par- 

 ticular can be rotated under the body, in a position to 

 support, partially at least, the weight of the fish, though 

 actually they do not appear to be strong enough for this 

 purpose. Present specimens have been taken at depths 

 of 80 to 200 fathoms, but Millot suggests that the fish 

 probably lives at a depth of 400 fathoms. During the 

 course of their long history the coelacanths spread aU 

 over the world, hving in ponds, lakes, streams, coal- 

 swamps, and shallow epicontinental seas. Though a few 

 invaded the sea in the Devonian, the group as a whole 

 continued in fresh water until the Triassic; how long 

 Latimeria and its ancestors have been marine is imknown 

 —if absence from the fresh-water fossil record is evi- 

 dence, ever since the close of the Triassic. Perhaps 

 throughout most of the Cenozoic the coelacanths have 

 struggled along as a dwindling group, Hving along the 

 continental shelves in the manner of rock fish. 



Unfortunately many details of interest to us here are 

 not yet known— whether the fish is ovoviviparous or pos- 

 sesses a cleidoic egg, whether the pelvic fins can act as 

 claspers, and whether urea or some other organic, os- 

 motically active solute is present in the blood in excep- 



