February 16

Zoological Find of the Century: Living Fossil Pulled from the Sea

On this day in 1939, Marjorie Courtney-Latimer's suspicions were confirmed. The 1.5 meter long fish she rescued from a fisherman's haul was indeed a coelacanth—a fish believed to have become extinct 80 million years ago!

The fish lives in crevices far below the ocean surface, preferring caves in extinct underwater volcanoes. Volcanic soil does not make good fossils, and the great depth at which the fish lives usually keeps both fossils and living specimens from turning up. Coelacanths are either blue or brown and have knoblike front fins that work as crude legs.