An ancient fish named coelacanth was long believed to have gone extinct 66 million years ago during the same mass extinction event that wiped out the non-avian dinosaurs. Scientists knew the fish only from fossils and assumed it had vanished along with countless other prehistoric species. That changed in 1938 when a living coelacanth was discovered in a fishing net off the coast of South Africa. The unexpected find stunned the scientific community and turned the coelacanth into one of the most famous "living fossils" ever discovered.
Previous Fact Next Fact