FACTH about COELACANTH.

COELACANTH FACT.

(1) You'd think it would be hard to miss a six-foot-long, 200-pound fish, but the discovery of a live Coelacanth in 1938 caused an international sensation. On the following slides, you'll discover everything you need to know about this "living fossil."

(2) Coelacanths first appeared in the world's oceans during the late Devonian period (about 360 million years ago), and persisted all the way to the end of the Cretaceous, when they went extinct along with dinosaurs, pterosaurs and marine reptiles. Despite their 300-million-year track record, though, coelacanths were never particularly abundant, especially compared to other families of prehistoric fish.

(3).The vast majority of creatures that go extinct manage to *stay* extinct. That's why scientists were so shocked when, in 1938, a sailing vessel dredged up a live Coelacanth near the coast of South Africa. This "living fossil" generated instant headlines around the world, and fueled hopes that somewhere, somehow, a population of Ankylosaurus or Pteranodon had escaped the end-Cretaceous extinction and survived to the present day.

(4).Sadly, in the decades following the discovery of Latimeria chalumnae (as the first Coelacanth species was named), there were no reliable encounters with living, breathing tyrannosaurs or ceratopsians. In 1997, though, a second Coelacanth species (L. menadoensis) was discovered in Indonesia. Genetic analysis showed that the Indonesian Coelacanth differs significantly from the African species, though they may both have evolved from a common ancestor.

(5).The vast majority of fish in the world's oceans, lakes and rivers--including salmon, tuna, goldfish and guppies--are "ray-finned" fish, or actinopterygians, the fins of which are supported by characteristic spines. Coelacanths, by contrast, are "lobe-finned" fish, or sarcopterygians, whose fins are supported by fleshy, stalklike structures. Besides Coelacanths, the only extant sarcoptergians alive today are the lungfish of Africa, Australia and South America.

(6).Just how distinctive are Coelacanths? Well, both identified Latimeria species have heads that can pivot upwards, thanks to an "intracranial joint" on the top of the skull (an adaptation that allows these fish to open their mouths extra-wide in order to swallow prey). Not only is this feature lacking in other lobe-finned and ray-finned fish, but it hasn't been seen in any other vertebrates on earth, including sharks and snakes.

(7).As you might expect given their extreme rarity, Coelacanths tend to stay well out of sight. Both species of Latimeria live about 500 feet below the water (in the so-called "twilight zone"), preferably in small caves carved out of limestone deposits. It's impossible to know for sure, but the total Coelacanth population may number in the low thousands, making this one of the world's rarest and most endangered fish.

(8).Like assorted other fish and reptiles, coelacanths are "ovoviviparous"--that is, the female's eggs are fertilized internally, and stay in the birth duct until they're ready to hatch. Technically, this type of "live birth" is different from that of placental mammals, where the developing embryo is attached to the mother via an umbilical cord. (While we're on the subject, one captured female Coelacanth was found to have 26 newborn hatchlings inside, each of them over a foot long).

(9).As rare as they are today, lobe-finned fish like Coelacanths constitute an important link in vertebrate evolution. About 400 million years ago, various populations of sarcopterygians evolved the ability to crawl out of the water and breathe on dry land. One of these brave tetrapods was ancestral to every land-dwelling animal on earth today, including reptiles, birds and mammals--which all bear the characteristic five-toed anatomy of their distant progenitor.

(10).The Coelacanth's "twilight zone" habitat makes the ideal fit for its sluggish metabolism: Latimeria isn't much of an active swimmer, preferring to drift along in deep-sea currents and gobble whatever smaller marine animals happen across its path. Unfortunately, the inherent laziness of Coelacanths make them a prime target for bigger marine predators, which explains why some Coelacanths observed in the wild sport prominent shark-shaped bite wounds.(source:dinosours.about)

COELACANTH_LIFE HISTORY

The coelacanths,(Source: Wikipedia)_constitute a now rare order of fish that includes two extant species in the genus Latimeria: the West Indian Ocean coelacanth (Latimeria chalumnae) and the Indonesian coelacanth (Latimeria menadoensis). They follow the oldest known living lineage of Sarcopterygii (lobe-finned fish and tetrapods), which means they are more closely related to lungfish, reptiles and mammals than to the common ray-finned fishes. They are found along the coastlines of the Indian Ocean and Indonesia.Since there are only two species of coelacanth and both are threatened, it is the most endangered order of animals in the world. The West Indian Ocean coelacanth is a critically endangered species.

Coelacanths belong to the subclass Actinistia, a group of lobed-finned fish related to lungfish and certain extinct Devonian fish such as osteolepiforms, porolepiforms, rhizodonts, and Panderichthys.Coelacanths were thought to have gone extinct in the Late Cretaceous,around 66 million years ago, but were rediscovered in 1938 off the coast of South Africa.The coelacanth was long considered a “living fossil” because it was believed to be the sole remaining member of a taxon otherwise known only from fossils, with no close relations alive,and to have evolved into roughly its current form approximately 400 million years ago.Several recent studies have shown that coelacanth body shapes are much more diverse than was previously thought, however.

Latimeria chalumnae and L. menadoensis are the only two known living coelacanth species.The word "coelacanth" is derived from the Greek for “hollow spine”, because of the fish's unique hollow spine fins.Coelacanths are large, plump, lobe-finned fish that grow up to 1.8 meters. They are nocturnal piscivorous drift-hunters.The body is covered in cosmoid scales that act as armor. Coelacanths have eight fins – 2 dorsal fins, 2 pectoral fins, 2 pelvic fins, 1 anal fin and 1 caudal fin. The tail is very nearly equally proportioned and is split by a terminal tuft of fin rays that make up its caudal lobe. The eyes of the coelacanth are very large, while the mouth is very small. The eye is acclimatized to seeing in poor light by rods that absorb mostly low wavelengths. Coelacanth vision has evolved to a mainly blue-shifted color capacity.

DNA_A group led by: Chris Amemiya and Neil Shubin published the genome sequence of the coelacanth in the journal Nature. The African coelacanth genome was sequenced and assembled using DNA from a Comoros Islands Latimeria chalumnae specimen. It was sequenced by Illumina sequencing technology and assembled using the short read genome assembler ALLPATHS-LG.

ECOLOGY_Anjouan Island and the Grande Comore provide ideal underwater cave habitats for coelacanths. The islands' underwater volcanic slopes, steeply eroded and covered in sand, house a system of caves and crevices which allow coelacanths resting places during the daylight hours. These islands support a large benthic fish population that help to sustain coelacanth populations.During the daytime, coelacanths will rest in caves anywhere from 100 to 500 meters deep; others migrate to deeper waters.The cooler waters (below 120 meters) reduce the coelacanths' metabolic costs. Drifting toward reefs and night feeding saves vital energy.Resting in caves during the day also saves energy otherwise used to fight currents.Coelacanths are nocturnal piscivores who feed mainly on benthic fish populations.Drifting along the lava cliffs, they presumably feed on whatever fish they encounter.

Coelacanths are fairly peaceful when encountering others of their kind; remaining calm even in a crowded cave. They do avoid body contact, however, withdrawing immediately if contact occurs. When approached by foreign potential predators (e.g. a submersible), they show panic flight reactions, suggesting that coelacanths are most likely prey to large deepwater predators. Shark bite marks have been seen on coelacanths; sharks are common in areas inhabited by coelacanths.Electrophoresis testing of 14 coelacanth enzymes shows little genetic diversity between coelacanth populations. Among the fish that have been caught were about equal numbers of males and females.Population estimates range from 210 individuals per population all the way to 500 per population.Because coelacanths have individual color markings, scientists think that they recognize other coelacanths via electric communication.

LIFE HISTORY_Coelacanths are ovoviviparous, meaning that the female retains the fertilized eggs within her body while the embryos develop during a gestation period of over a year. Typically, females are larger than the males; their scales and the skin folds around the cloaca differ. The male coelacanth has no distinct copulatory organs, just a cloaca, which has a urogenital papilla surrounded by erectile caruncles. It is hypothesized that the cloaca everts to serve as copulatory organ.Coelacanth eggs are large with only a thin layer of membrane to protect them. Embryos hatch within the female and eventually are given live birth. Young coelacanths resemble the adult, the main differences being an external yolk sac, larger eyes relative to body size and a more pronounced downward slope of the body. The juvenile coelacanth's broad yolk sac hangs below the pelvic fins. The scales and fins of the juvenile are completely matured; however, it does lack odontodes, which it gains during maturation.

CONSERVATION_Because little is known about the coelacanth, the conservation status is difficult to characterize. According to Fricke et al. (1995), there should be some stress put on the importance of conserving this species. From 1988 to 1994, Fricke counted some 60 individuals on each dive. In 1995 that number dropped to 40. Even though this could be a result of natural population fluctuation, it also could be a result of overfishing. Coelacanths usually are caught when local fishermen are fishing for oilfish. Fishermen sometimes snag a coelacanth instead of an oilfish because they traditionally fish at night, when oilfish (and coelacanths) feed. Before scientists became interested in coelacanths, they were thrown back into the water if caught. Now that there is an interest in them, fishermen trade them in to scientists or other officials once they have been caught. Before the 1980s, this was a problem for coelacanth populations. In the 1980s, international aid gave fiberglass boats to the local fishermen, which resulted in fishing out of coelacanth territories into more fish-productive waters. Since then, most of the motors on the boats have broken down so the local fishermen are now back in the coelacanth territory, putting the species at risk again. Different methods to minimize the number of coelacanths caught include moving fishers away from the shore, using different laxatives and malarial salves to reduce the quantity of oilfish needed, using coelacanth models to simulate live specimens, and increasing awareness of the need to protect the species. In 1987 the Coelacanth Conservation Council was established to help protect and encourage population growth of coelacanths.

In 2002, the South African Coelacanth Conservation and Genome Resource Programme was launched to help further the studies and conservation of the coelacanth. The South African Coelacanth Conservation and Genome Resource Programme focuses on biodiversity conservation, evolutionary biology, capacity building, and public understanding. The South African government committed to spending R10 million on the program.

The underwater beauty old Manado (Manado tua) Island and Bunaken Island, where the discovery of ancient coelacanth fish habitat.

The underwater beauty old Manado (Manado tua) Island and Bunaken Island, where the discovery of ancient coelacanth fish habitat.

Until 1938, coelacanths were known only as an order of peculiar lobe-finned fishes which appeared in the fossil record almost 400 million years ago and then seemed to go extinct about 80 million years ago. So the discovery of a live coelacanth off the coast of South Africa in 1938 was understandably met with great excitement. A subsequent fourteen-year search for a second specimen of this extraordinary fish resulted in the discovery of the "true" home of the living coelacanth, Latimeria chalumnae, in the Comoran archipelago in the western Indian Ocean. Since that time about 200 specimens of have been caught in the Comoros. A few other specimens have also been caught near Madagascar and Mozambique, but genetic analyses suggest that these are simply "strays" from the main Comoros population.
The scientific community was shocked again in 1998 when UC Berkeley researchers announced the discovery of a coelacanth in North Sulawesi, Indonesia, almost 10,000 kilometers from the Comoros. Dr. Mark Erdmann first saw a coelacanth in Indonesia in September 1997, while on his honeymoon with his wife, Arnaz. Arriving at a fish market, Arnaz noticed a large, strange-looking fish being wheeled by in a cart. Dr. Erdmann immediately recognized the fish as a coelacanth and excitedly photographed it and briefly interviewed the fisherman. Doubting that they could really have stumbled upon such a major discovery, they concluded that coelacanths must have been found in Indonesia previously. Unfortunately, they did not purchase and preserve the coelacanth. Upon further investigation following their arrival in Berkeley a week later, they found that this was indeed an important and unexpected discovery.

Dr. Erdmann returned to Sulawesi in November, 1997 in search of another coelacanth. During a 5 month period, he interviewed over 200 fisherman in the coastal villages around North Sulawesi, but found very few fisherman who seemed familiar with the fish. Finally, he interviewed two fisherman who said they occasionally caught the coelacanth, which they called raja laut, translated as, "king of the sea." After careful monitoring of their catch for several months,Dr. Erdman was rewarded with a second Sulawesi coelacanth on July 30, 1998. The second Sulawesi coelacanth was caught by:Om Lameh Sonatham in a deep-set shark gill net off of Manado Tua island in the Bunaken Marine Park (see "where do they live" for map of location). The coelacanth was barely alive when it was delivered to Dr. Erdmann. After they temporarily revived the animal by towing it behind their boat, they photographed it in shallow water (see photo on "home" page). When the injured fish eventually died, it was frozen and later donated to the Indonesian Institute of Sciences. A French and Indonesian research team named the Sulawesi coelacanth as a new species (Pouyand, L., et al. 1999 "A new species of coelacanth."

In October, 1999, a paper appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reporting more detailed molecular and morphological analyses of the Sulawesi coelacanth (Holder, M.T., M.V. Erdmann, T.P. Wilcox, R.L. Caldwell and D.M. Hillis. 1999. Two Living Species of Coelacanths? Conducted by scientists from the University of Texas, Austin and the University of California at Berkeley, Holder et al. concluded that the Comoran and Sulawesi populations most likely diverged 5.5 million years ago and perhaps as long as 16 million years ago. This is significantly earlier than the 1.2 to 1.4 million years ago suggested by Pouyand et al. The differences are due to sequencing errors made by Pouyand et al. as well as in the way that they calculated the age of divergence. The Texas and Berkeley teams conclude that the molecular evidence suggests that the two populations probably do represent different species. However, when Holder et al. looked at morphological traits reported by Pouyand et al. to differ between the Sulawesi fish and the Comoran population, they did not find them. This is due to the fact that Holder et al. used a larger sample size of Comoran fish which provided a better estimate of the amount of variation that occurs. The definitive answer regarding the relationship of these two populations of Latimeria probably won't be determined until additional Indonesian fish are captured and a more detailed morphological study is completed.

The annoucement by Erdmann et al. of the capture and preservation of a living coelacanth almost 10,000 kilometers from the Comoros appeared as a cover story in the journal Nature (Erdmann, M.V., Caldwell, R.L., and Moosa, M.K. 1998. "Indonesian 'King of the Sea' Discovered"). The discovery was also featured in television, radio, and newspaper articles around the world; including CNN, ABC News, and National Geographic. Discover magazine even listed the discovery as one of the top science stories of 1998.

The first formal descriptions of the two known Sulawesi coelacanths and how they were discovered were published in 1999 by Dr. Erdmann in Environmental Biology of Fishes. (Erdmann, M.V. 1999. An account of the first living coelacanth known to scientists in Indonesian waters. Env. Biol. Fishes, 54: 440-444; Erdmann, M.V., R.L Caldwell, S.L. Jewett and A. Tjakrawidjaja. 1999.)The second recorded living coelacanth from north Sulawesi,In the first paper, Dr. Erdmann describes the events that lead up to the discovery and photographing of the first Indonesian coelacanth in the fish market in Manado. The second paper describes the fish captured off Manado Tua on July 30, 1998, its preservation and donation to the Indonesian government.

By:Dr. Erdmann's research was funded by the National Science Foundation and the National Geographic Society.

The beauty of the clear sea on the island of Sulawesi.

Banua Wuhu Underwater Volcano,Sitaro/Mahangetang Island,North Sulawesi,Indonesia.

Banua Wuh,Unique Diving Spot in Mahangetang-North Sulawesi-Indonesia.

As quoted from CNN in April 2012, which listed of 50 best dive sites in the world, it mentioned 4 Indonesia best dive sites in the world among those 50. They covered main best dive destinations like Bali, Komodo, Raja Ampat, and Banua Wuhu. Other 50 sites include 46 dive sites in 5 continents. And Banua Wuhu is one of best dive in the world.
Banua Wuhu is one of place in North Sulawesi that nominated to be a weird diving spot. The panorama around this spot is so extreme because it is surrounded by volcano undersea. However, the real divers will be challenged to explore many diving spots. The uniqueness of its spot makes divers curious and wants to conquer it. The crater spot of Banua Wuhu is marked by bubbles among the rocks with depth 8 meters.
The average temperature is ranging from 37⁰C – 38⁰C. That is why divers have to be careful to its bubbles. If you are careless, the hot bubbles can burn your skin and cause wounds. In this place, divers also will be able to hear the rumbling of volcano. Actually Mahengetang is one of undersea volcano with the peak named as Banua Wuhu. Its peak has elevates around 400 meters from the base of sea and 6 meters from the surface of water.
According to the story, the volcano is group of many islands during 19 – 20 century, one has 90 meters height at 1835 but gone many years later. At 1904, it has 5 craters and the other new island that formed at 1919 gone at 1935. Besides having volcano undersea, Mahengetang also has beautiful underwater life. When you dive at 10 – 20 meters depth, you can find marine life closer. Plus, you can see carpet of tight coral reefs. With those panoramas, it is not surprise if Mahengetang underwater become tourist destination in North Sulawesi, especially foreign tourists.
Banua Wuhu is located at Mahengetang Island and around Sangihe Archipelago, North Sulawesi, Indonesia. It is easy to reach it from the shore because the distance is only 300 meters from southwest of Mahengetang Island. Its volcano has its underwater beauty and divers love to explore it. From Tahuna (the capital of Sangihe Regency), you can take common boat and it will take around 4 hours. However, if you want faster trip, you can take speedboat to Mahengetang which is only take 1 hour. If you come from Manado, you can take speedboat and it takes 5 hours.

Banua Wuhu Mahangetang_Underwater Volcano,Sitaro Island,North Sulawesii,Indonesia.

The Wonderfull Banua Wuhu,Underwater Volcano.Mahangetang/Sitaro Island,North Sulawesi,Indonesia.

For those of you who like to dive, ocean Indonesia is a paradise for this activity. In fact, CNN put Indonesia as one of the most bizarre places in the world for diving,Banua Wuhu submarine volcano rises more than 400 m from the sea floor in the Sangihe Islands of Indonesia. Historical records show that several ephemeral islands were formed and disappeared. A 90 m high island was formed in 1835, but then dwindled to only a few rocks in 1848. A new island was reportedly formed in 1889 and it was 50 m high in 1894. Another new island was formed in 1919 but then disappeared by 1935,Underwater Volcano in Indonesia. 

According to CNN, Banua Wuhu is a strange dive. It is located around the islands of Sangihe, North Sulawesi. This area is considered extreme because of the volcanoes under the sea that is Banua Wuhu is located 300 meters southwest of the island Mahengetang. Banua Wuhu mountain crater point marked with bubbles in between the rocks.The average temperature of these waters anraea 37-38 degrees celsius.

Two slit World Plate in Iceland. Besides Indonesia, CNN mentions among other places. One of them is located in Silfra crack Thingvellier National Park, Iceland.Dive in this place means you are diving between two continents because this area is the meeting of two tectonic plates of North America and Eurasia plate.In this area, you can dive on the continental shelf cracks. The water here is very clear with temperatures cold enough. Not only is clear, the water is quite clean and safe to drink.

The world's smallest seahorse in the lembeh strait_North Sulawesi,Indonesia.