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Frozen fish is definitely declasse in 
the world of haute cuisine. But to 
the American Museum of Natural 
History, one frozen fish is so desirable 
that the Museum has been going to 
great lengths to obtain it. 
For six months, Guido Dingerkus 
of the Ichthyology Department has 
been trying to arrange the delivery 
of a frozen coelacanth from Zimbabwe 
to New York. Unfortunately, shipping 
a 120-pound frozen fish halfway 
around the world is not like shipping 
fish sticks from Cape Cod to Des 
Moines. Dingerkus has run into a long 
series of problems and delays that 
threaten to prevent the fish from ever 
reaching the Museum. 
The coelacanth is often called a liv- 
ing fossil because until recently it was 
believed to have been extinct for 30 
million years. It is a fascinating animal 
for several reasons. Some zoologists 
think it is closely related to the primi- 
tive, lobe-finned group of fishes that 
gave rise to the first land vertebrates, 
the amphibians, which eventually led 
to Homo sapiens. By studying the fro- 
zen fish, it may be possible to learn 
more about the transition of vertebrate 
life from water to land. 
The coelacanth in question was 
caught in June of 1980 off the Com- 
oros Islands (near Madagascar), the 
only area where coelacanths are found. 
The local Comoros fishermen know 
that these strange, lobe-finned fish will 
sometimes fetch high rewards if pre- 
served. (Before the living coelacanth 
was discovered by scientists, the is- 
landers had been catching and eating 
them, as well as using their skin for 
patching bicycle tires.) Someone ap- 
parently thought that a frozen coe- 
lacanth would fetch more money than 
a preserved one and stored it in a 
meat locker. It was put up for sale 
at $2,000 (or $17 per pound — not 
bad when you consider the price of 
lobster tails), but after several months 
with no buyers, the discouraged en- 
trepreneur donated the fish to the Na- 
tional Museum of Zimbabwe. 
Only two frozen coelacanths have 
entered the United States. Both were 
caught by an expedition of the Cali- 
fornia Academy of Sciences led by 
John McCosker, who tried unsuccess- 
fully to capture a live coelacanth to 
exhibit at Steinhart Aquarium in San 
Francisco. Frozen coelacanths are su- 
perior to preserved ones because their 
biochemicals, chromosomes, and cell 
structures remain intact. 
When Dingerkus learned of the fro- 
zen coelacanth in Zimbabwe, he con- 
tacted the director of the national mu- 
seum there. The director told him that 
his museum only wanted a cast of 
the fish; the American Museum could 
have the original. Dingerkus was de- 
lighted and promised to send him a 
first-rate cast when the fish came in. 
Gary Littman of Sloan-Kettering 
Institute, who had long wanted to 
study the blood and muscle proteins 
of the coelacanth, volunteered to pay 
all shipping expenses. Furthermore, an 
airline, hoping for some publicity, 
agreed to ship the fish free of charge. 
Everything seemed settled. 
But months passed and the fish 
never arrived. After numerous tele- 
phone calls, Littman and Dingerkus 
found out that the airline people had 
changed their mind: not only did they 
refuse to deliver the fish for free, they 
were not going to deliver it at any 
price. No other airline, it turned out, 
Illicit Antiquities 
Visions of Antiquity: Licit and Illicit, 
a series of films followed by discussions, 
will be presented in the Auditorium on 
three Mondays — May 4, 11, and 18 — 
at 7:00 P.M. The Plunderers: Treasure 
Trail examines the illegal digging and 
plundering of ancient tombs by poor 
Turkish farmers. The Plunderers: The 
Hot Pot investigates the Metropolitan 
Museum of Art’s controversial, million- 
dollar purchase of the Euphronios vase, 
which was probably stolen from a tomb, 
and documents the destruction of Etrus- 
can and Egyptian antiquities by tomb 
robbers. The Royal Archives of Ebla 
shows the recent excavations in Syria that 
have unearthed 17,000 clay tablets. The 
tablets, which are still in the early stages 
of translation, seem to be related to bib- 
lical texts. Tickets for the series are $18 
($12 for members); call the Education 
Department for more information. 
Forever Young 
In his new documentary. Forever 
Young. Academy Award-winning director 
Robin Lehman talks to elderly people 
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