For decades, paleontologists believed that coelacanths—a group of ancient lobe-finned fish—had vanished from the Earth roughly 66 million years ago, around the same time the dinosaurs went extinct. However, this scientific consensus was shattered in 1938 when a living specimen was hauled up in a fishing net off the coast of South Africa. Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer, a local museum curator, noticed the unusual blue fish among the catch and contacted the prominent ichthyologist J.L.B. Smith. Smith identified it as a living coelacanth, confirming that these creatures had survived in deep ocean environments virtually unchanged for millions of years. This discovery showed that the fossil record represents only a fragment of Earth’s evolutionary history.
According to the passage, the widely held scientific belief that the coelacanth was extinct was disproven when:
- a living specimen of the fish was captured in a fishing net in 1938.Cevap
- BMarjorie Courtenay-Latimer discovered coelacanth fossils along the South African coast.
- CJ.L.B. Smith proved that coelacanths and dinosaurs died out simultaneously.
- Dpaleontologists successfully located ancient fossils in deep ocean trenches.