The following passage is about the discovery of the coelacanth, a prehistoric fish.
[1]
In December 1938, Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer, a South African museum curator, was inspecting a catch of fish brought in by a local trawler captain. Among the pile of common marine life lay a bizarre, five-foot-long creature with heavy, armor-like scales and unusual, limb-like lobed fins. Courtenay-Latimer, unable to identify the striking blue fish, dragged it back to her museum and sent a detailed sketch to J.L.B. Smith, an ichthyologist at Rhodes University. Smith immediately recognized the fish's prehistoric anatomy, identifying it as a coelacanth—a member of a primitive lineage believed to have gone extinct 66 million years ago.
[2]
This monumental find sent shockwaves through the global scientific community because it directly challenged established timelines of vertebrate evolution. Scientists were eager to study the coelacanth's unique anatomy, which seemed to represent a transitional link between ocean-dwelling fish and the first land-dwelling tetrapods. However, locating a second specimen to verify the species' survival proved to be an agonizingly slow endeavor. Smith launched an exhaustive fourteen-year search, distributing bilingual leaflets along the southeastern coast of Africa offering a reward for another specimen. In December 1952, a second coelacanth was finally caught near the Comoro Islands, proving that the 1938 specimen was not an isolated anomaly. _______
Which of the following choices, if added at the blank, provides the most effective and logical concluding sentence for the passage?
- This second catch confirmed the existence of a viable, surviving population of a prehistoric species that had managed to evade modern science.Cevap
- BBecause this second catch proved that a breeding population existed in the deep waters of the Indian Ocean.
- CFurthermore, the Comoro Islands are a volcanic archipelago known for their steep underwater slopes and strong currents.
- DSmith is thrilled by the news and immediately flies to the Comoro Islands to claim the fish.