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Such information is vital to preserve species of such rarity. So we do not know where coelacanths give birth, where the young go, or why they don’t live with the adults. Only a single baby coelacanth has ever been sighted, filmed by different researchers in 2009 at a depth of 160m. They didn’t spot one in the Comoros, and have never spotted one in separate expeditions to study the fish off Indonesia, South Africa or Tanzania. Other research in this time has shown that coelacanth embryos develop for three years, the longest recorded for any vertebrate.Ĭoelacanths also appear to have the lowest metabolic rates among vertebrates.īut the study by Fricke’s team, published in this month’s issue of Marine Biology, also gives away how much more we still don’t know.įor example, during the entire survey period, the team did not record a single subadult, juvenile, or baby coelacanth. The study demonstrates how much our understanding of these wonderful fish has improved in the past few decades. Remote operating vehicles are revealing a little of the coelacanth's way of life The survey reinforces the impression that perhaps just 300-400 coelacanths live at Grand Comore and that the fish do not tolerate waters above 22 degrees Centigrade particularly well, as many fish disappeared from the study area in 1994 when the water warmed, returning later. They have made some wonderful discoveries.Ĭoelacanths, it seems, are peaceful animals that do not act antagonistically to one another, even when groups of up to 16 fish share the same cave.įemales are markedly larger than males but there doesn’t appear to be any sexual content to their gatherings.ĭuring the day, the fish live at a depth of 170-240m along a steep volcanic landscape of caves, and at night they drift down to depths of 500m to feed, coming back to their caves in the morning to rest. The ROVs followed the fish into the caves in which they live, filming and photographing individuals, which are recognisable by the pattern of white spots on their blue bodies. The scientists used remote operated vehicles to descend into the sea and survey an 8km-long stretch of coastline around Grand Comore inhabited by coelacanths. It is one of two species of coelacanth the other, Latimeria menadoensis, is a brown fish found much more recently in Indonesia. Latimeria chalumnae is a deep blue fish that has been sighted around Africa, off the coasts of South Africa, Mozambique, Kenya, Tanzania and Madagascar.
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The study was done on Latimeria chalumnae by Hans Fricke of the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen, Germany and colleagues.
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So considering how enigmatic the coelacanth has been, it is remarkable that we now have a population study of the fish lasting more than two decades. If you're reading via RSS, you'll need to visit the blog to access this content. In order to see this content you need to have both Javascript enabled and Flash Installed.