APPENDIX C 

 THE LATEST POSITION ABOUT COELACANTHS 



THE position regarding recent Coelacanths up to July 1955 is as 

 follows: The French have got in all seven more Coelacanths, all 

 apparently at the Comores. One report that stated that a specimen had 

 been caught on the coast of Madagascar has not been confirmed. 



Almost all information about these Coelacanths has come from the 

 French, who report them as all having been taken by native fishermen 

 at depths ranging from 80 to 150 fathoms, in each case the exact depth 

 of capture has been stated (see note, p. 242). 



All have been large fishes, the largest weighing about 150 lb., all 

 plainly the same species, with fins like Latimeria but body shape like 

 Malamay so that probably only the former genus is valid. 



The first were apparently all males, and this led to the suggestion 

 that the females live in much deeper water, implying, in fact, that 

 they all do, and that it is only the males who occasionally rise to lesser 

 depths. This theory was invalidated by the capture of a female at about 

 the usual depth. Not long after this the first egg-bearing female was 

 caught, and by the most curious coincidence the fisherman in this case 

 was one of Hunt's own crew. Hunt wrote to me from Majunga, 

 Madagascar, about this fish and said that it was caught only about a 

 couple of hundred yards from the schooner and quite early in the 

 evening. The man got his reward from the Government. The eggs 

 were rather like those in a chicken, being in a cluster of varying sizes, 

 three of them large and well-formed. A man who broke one open and 

 sucked it said the flavour was the same as that of a chicken. Next 

 morning the fish left for Paris. 



This is the first report about the flavour of a Coelacanth's egg. Two 

 things emerge from this : one is that our hopes of delving into the still 

 more remote past within the embryo of a Coelacanth are less than if 

 the creature had brought forth its young alive, and secondly the 

 Coelacanth doubtless sheds its eggs inside a special case, quite possibly 

 like those produced by some sharks and rays. Who will be the first to 

 find one ? When they are found, it is well within the bounds of possibility 

 that Coelacanth egg-cases of bygone ages will be identified among 

 fossil remains. 



Judging by what has been published, only the French, mainly Dr. 



