241 



*It must also be noted that the Latimeria, which appeared greatly 

 distressed on its arrival at the surface, seemed to have recovered 

 appreciably after an hour or so and passed the rest of the night quite 

 comfortably without any too obvious inconvenience. It was daybreak, 

 with the appearance of sunlight and the gradual warming of the water, 

 which initiated the progressive discomfort that led rapidly to its death. 



'The trial having thus been made under satisfactory conditions, it 

 does not seem likely that substantially better results can be anticipated 

 from the employment of the same technique in future. We must be 

 prepared to make other arrangements. The only procedure offering 

 any hope of keeping a live Coelacanth for a longer time would seem to 

 be the construction of a great trellis-work case in which we could place 

 the fish immediately after capture; there we should keep it normally 

 submerged at a depth of 150-200 m., and only haul it up for limited 

 times when someone wanted to observe or photograph the animal. 

 Such a cage will be put in hand at Anjouan.* 



As a result of this report, I sent the following to Nature^ and it 

 appeared in the issue of 3rd September 1955. 



LIVE COELACANTHS 



*From the discovery of the first Coelacanth at East London in 1938 

 it was my aim, not only to discover their true home, but also I hoped to 

 live to see a living Coelacanth ; and for mankind generally to be able to 

 see this living link with the incredibly remote past. When Malania was 

 found at the Comores, I planned to catch Coelacanths alive and to 

 keep them alive. It is therefore gratifying that the French are plainly 

 making every endeavour to achieve this. The article by Professor J. 

 Millot in Nature of February 26 1955 on the experience of the first 

 living Coelacanth at the Comores is of special interest. 



'The failure of the French to keep their fish alive for more than a 

 few hours is attributed by them to decompression combined with rise 

 in temperature of the water, while a high degree of photophobia on 

 the part of the fish is alleged. 



'While there may be something in this, in my view the cause is 

 probably quite different. Professor Millot and his collaborators are 

 possibly not aware of the experience that large fishes taken alive after 

 a struggle on a line, even with no visible laceration, rarely live long 

 after, certainly not in aquaria, and even when liberated many die very 

 shortly. Curiously enough, fishes taken by harpooning, even when 

 extensively gashed, show a greater survival rate than those taken on 

 hooks. Coelacanths caught by net or trap and kept in a closed vessel 



