Question

Read the passage below and answer the question that follows.

In December 1938, Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer, a museum curator in South Africa, discovered an unusual blue fish among the catch of a local trawler, an event that would ultimately lead to the identification of the coelacanth, a prehistoric fish thought to have been extinct for 66 million years. Earlier that same year, Courtenay-Latimer had completed a reorganization of the East London Museum’s fossil collection, a task she began in late 1935 shortly after her appointment as curator. Recognizing the specimen's significance, she contacted the prominent chemist and amateur ichthyologist J.L.B. Smith, who was unable to examine the fish in person until February 1939 due to his academic teaching commitments. In the interim, Courtenay-Latimer had the fish mounted by a local taxidermist in January 1939 to prevent it from decaying. Although Smith would later publish a comprehensive monograph on the species in 1940, it was not until 1952 that a second coelacanth specimen was successfully retrieved near the Comoro Islands, confirming the species' primary habitat.

Based on the passage, which of the following events occurred after Courtenay-Latimer completed the reorganization of the museum's fossil collection but before Smith examined the coelacanth in person?