Celacantos in the Gulf of Mexico?

1993/12/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Biologia

Celacanthus is one of the species of primitive fish and the fossils found belong to the Primary Age, that is, 400 million years ago. Given the similarity between these fossils and the present celacantos, it is evident that these animals have evolved very little.

Sixty million years ago, that is, in the Cretaceous, it has been considered that they disappeared with the dinosaurs. But Miss Courtenay Latimer encountered an unknown fish during the study of the fish of the Chalumna River in South Africa, specifically with a celacanthus. In 1989 on the Komore Islands Hans Fricke took out the first images of celacanthus from a small dive.

Since then it has been thought that the Celacantos lived in the Komore islands at a depth of between 100 and 200 meters. But in 1949 a Florida store fan saw rare fish scales and sent them to the Washington Ginsbourg expert. After analyzing the structure of the scales, it was considered to be of a fish similar to celacanthus. Until 1992 no more remains of celacanthus were found. So last year, in Biloxi, in the state of Mississippi, R. Mr. Heu observed an oval scale game.

Since these scales were similar to those found in 1949, it was decided that they belonged to the same type of animal. The Gulf of Mexico, if compared to the sea of the Komore islands, seems that celacanthus is not an ideal place to live, but there are coral islands, called Key, in which there is a quite good habitat for celacanthus to live.

In addition, XVI. In some of the coins manufactured in the nineteenth century appears the figure of celacanthus, so it can be considered that formerly celacanthus was known by fishermen.