APPENDIX E 



COELACANTH BROADCAST FROM DURBAN 

 2gth December ig^2 



THIS broadcast was first sent over the National Network of South 

 Africa about lo p.m. on the 29th December, 1952. As a result of 

 nation-wide requests it was repeated the following day and was also 

 sent out over the British Broadcasting System and in the U.S.A. 

 Translated into many different languages, at least parts of it were broad- 

 cast in virtually every country in the world. 



Reproduced below is the text of the broadcast ; this followed a brief 

 interview with Dr. Vernon Shearer, M.P., and introductory^ comments 

 by the announcer. 



*It is my astounding privilege to announce to the world the discovery 

 of a second Coelacanth. This all started fourteen years ago — no, of 

 course I am wrong, it really started 300 million years ago. For that is 

 the time that scientists estimate as the first appearance of the Coela- 

 canth fishes on earth — it would take too long to tell you how this esti- 

 mate is made, but that figure has been arrived at after long study by 

 some of the best brains of mankind. 



These rather curious fishes were evidently a vigorous line, for they 

 flourished and multiplied, their fossil remains being found over a 

 great area, and they kept on almost unchanged for a far longer period 

 than any other type of creature we know. After about 200 million 

 years of existence they began to decline in numbers and there are no 

 fossil remains in rocks less than 60 to 70 million years old. Scientists 

 therefore assumed without question that this powerful and ancient 

 line had become extinct about that time. It can therefore be well under- 

 stood, and many of you will remember something about it, that the 

 discovery of a living 5 -foot undoubted Coelacanth near East London 

 in South Africa in 1938, was the greatest shock to scientists everywhere, 

 and their excitement was so great that the man in the street was in- 

 fected, too, so that the South African Coelacanth became probably 

 the best-known biological curiosity in the world. It was discovered on 

 the 23 rd of December 1938 and was kept for me to examine and 

 identify, but the unfortunate dislocation of normal life by the Christmas 

 holidays eventually resulted in the loss of all the flesh and skeleton of 



