Coelacanth

The West Indian Ocean coelacanth (Latimeria chalumnae) is a large, slow-moving lobe-finned fish whose lineage extends back more than 400 million years, predating the dinosaurs by roughly 200 million years. It reaches up to 2 meters in length and 90 kilograms, and its paired, limb-like pectoral and pelvic fins move in an alternating gait that mirrors the locomotion of four-limbed land vertebrates. Coelacanths live in steep, rocky underwater caves and slopes along the East African coast, typically at depths between 150 and 400 meters, where water temperatures stay cold and stable. They are nocturnal predators, feeding on cuttlefish, squid, and small fish, and are thought to use a specialized rostral organ in their snout to detect weak electric fields produced by prey.

The species is listed as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List, with the global population estimated at fewer than 1,000 mature individuals across all known subpopulations. The primary threat is incidental capture: coelacanths are not targeted commercially, but they are taken as bycatch in deep-set gillnets used by artisanal fishers targeting oilfish and sharks along the Comoros, Tanzania, and South Africa coastlines. Their extremely slow reproductive rate compounds this vulnerability. Females carry young for an estimated gestation period of around three years, producing small litters of live-born pups, which means the population has almost no capacity to recover quickly from even modest levels of incidental mortality.