The Coelacanth: Discovery of a Living Fossil episode artwork

EPISODE · Jul 10, 2025 · 15 MIN

The Coelacanth: Discovery of a Living Fossil

from History Dispatches · host Matt and McKinley Breen

On December 22, 1938, Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer, the curator of a museum in East London, South Africa, came upon a large fish caught in the net by a trawler. It was unlike anything she had ever seen. And it wasn’t long before the strange fish with vivid blue scales was an international sensation. And that’s because the strange fish was supposed to be extinct - having disappeared from the earth 66 million years earlier. This is the story of the Coelacanth. Sources "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coelacanth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marjorie_Courtenay-Latimer https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/coelacanths-the-fish-that-outdid-the-loch-ness-monster.html" Image:https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Marjorie_Courtenay-Latimer_and_Coelacanth.jpg History Dispatches is part of the Airwave Media Network: www.airwavemedia.com Interested in advertising on History Dispatches? Email us at [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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