Spearfish from 420 million years ago, also known as “four-legged fish”. (Public Domain)
The coelacanth, also known as the “four-legged fish,” is a living fossil on Earth, an ancient fish from 420 million years ago. Scientists recently discovered it by accident in Madagascar, a tropical island nation in East Africa.
This fish can live up to 60 years, the body length can reach 6.5 feet, weighing about 198 pounds. It has two pairs of fins on both sides of its body, sliding in the water like a horse’s four legs as alternating movements, so it is called “four-legged fish”. Previously, scientists thought that it in 65 million years ago, in the dinosaur extinction catastrophe together extinct.
However, in 1938, scientists found this fish for the first time in the South African coast. But it is very rare, generally living at a depth of 2,300 feet below the sea surface.
A study published in the South African Journal of Science on March 29 said the fish was recently discovered by accident in the Western Indian Ocean off the coast of Madagascar.
But the process of discovery is worrisome, it is a shark fishing team with a drift gillnets (gillnets) accidentally caught one. These nets are rectangular pieces of netting that open vertically in the sea and wait for the fish to swim in and get entangled in the net. This is a commercial shark fishing team for the purpose of obtaining shark products such as fish oil and shark fins, and they used gillnets to catch sharks at a depth of 328 to 492 feet below sea level. The result was the accidental capture of a four-legged fish.
The study authors called for this drift gillnet killing power and placed very deep below the sea surface, likely to cause the four-legged fish to face the crisis of extinction.
The study estimates that Madagascar is likely to be the central area where the four-legged fish, or its subgenus, gather, so conservation measures in this area are key to protecting this “living fossil” fish as old as the dinosaurs on a global scale.
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