We’ve all heard the story about how a living (or only recently dead) speciman of this previously thought extinct fish was caught off the coast of South Africa in 1938. What I’m wondering is; have anymore been caught? Or was that the only one?
I feel bad for your zero replies so I respond in an attempt to kick your topic back to the top. But let me say that I have absolutely no clue what you’re talking about. 
“I sink, therefore I swam.”
They always use it as an example of why a plesiosaur (thought to be extinct) in Loch Ness is possible. I’ve seen the report many times on the various nature shows, and there must be others, but haven’t heard of any more being caught.
Several posters in the other thread (myself included) referred to there having been more than one.
Here a link to the recent thread. I didn’t re-read it but I thought there were lots of more recent catches, just that was the one that made the news.
http://www.straightdope.com/ubb/Forum3/HTML/004837.html
LemonGrl, that was a nice thing to do.
Doh! I can’t believe I missed that thread. Exact same question, too. With the search engine working, I have no excuse. Proceed to kick me in the ass! Or just go here http://www.straightdope.com/ubb/Forum3/HTML/004837.html and ignore this thread.
I read somewhere recently (and I’m afraid I don’t remember where) that the local fishermen were surprised at all the hubbub about the coelacanth; they claimed they caught them regularly but threw them back because they didn’t taste very good.
It has been determined in the last couple of years that, in fact, there are at least 2 distinct populations of coelacanths.
See those stars over there? That is the Little Dipper. I’d show you the Big Dipper, but my zipper is stuck.
Cecil just wrote a column about the coelacanth. It’s the second short answer after the one about viruses. It’ll be out in about three weeks.
Jill
Yes, I have an answer for you. Such a fish was caught off of the coast of Evia (Euboia) in Greece in the seventies. I know because I remember all of the hub-bub one summer when I was there. It seemed to me that some short time after that Jacques Cousteau made an appearance on the island causing, of course, an even greater hub-bub.
Evia is the second largest Greek island very close to the mainland. It is in the Aegean Sea. The port where I recall these events occuring is across the bay from Marathon.
Anyone for a Ceolocanth salad sandwich on rye?
I’d like to take this opportunity to hijack this thread and take it to the land of the jawed fishes. Specifically: is the coelecanth a jawed fish? Are there any others? Is the general lack of jawed fishes in the post-mesozoic world (or whenever it was so many jawed fishes went extinct) the reason they used to think the coelecanth went extinct, or what?
Pardons if I’m making a false connection between the “jawed fish issue” and the “coelecanth issue”.
Actually, most (almost all) fish, including the coelacanth, are jawed fish (Superclass Ghathostomata). Jawless fish (Superclass Agnatha) include lampreys and hagfish. I think more jawless fish went extinct because they didn’t have the advantage of being able to capture prey with their, well, jaws.
“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.”
-H.P. Lovecraft, “The Call of Cthulhu”
Okay, clearly I’m getting the jawed issue confused. Thanks for clearing that up. And whatever anybody says about coelecanths, they are much prettier than lampreys.
And after dissecting lampreys in anatomy lab, I bet the coelacanth smells a hell of a lot better, too.
Yeah, yeah, I know the smell was from chemicals used to keep the things from rotting, but that was one of the worst odors I have ever encountered.
Wow. Now that’s off topic!
More than you want to know about the coelacanth fish: www.dinofish.com
Actually a fascinating site.