A home from home for coelacanths

摘要

The discovery of specimens of the coelacanth, Latimeria chaiumnae, in Indonesian waters raises questions about the geographical distribution and conservation status of this remarkable fish. On page 335 of this issue Erdmann et al. report the existence of living coelacanths off the northeast coast of Sulawesi, Indonesia, some 10,000 km east of their presumed natural home of the Comoros archipelago in the western Indian Ocean (Fig. 1). The circumstances of the initial discovery are astonishing — Erdmann's wife happened to see the instantly recognizable form of a coelacanth being carted through a fish market; Erdmann and colleagues later saw and described a live Indonesian specimen.