Posts tagged south africa

biomedicalephemera: Look carefully at this fish. It may bring you good fortune! No, no, coelacanths aren’t the fish of Yeh-Shen, but they were referred to as the “Wish Fish” in many telegrams between JLB Smith and his colleagues in Grahamstown and back in England - though there had been reports of a “foul-tasting, oily, hideous fish” going around for decades, it seemed that since the first specimen was recovered intact, all of the reports evaporated like magic. No one heard of any new “uglyfish” caught by locals, no one caught any in the tedious trawling missions sent out by Rhodes University, nothing. The first report of a new intact Coelacanth that had been caught by a local who had seen a reward poster happened at a most inopportune time: two days before Christmas Eve! Oh, it may seem like the perfect Christmas gift to Smith, looking back, but at the time it was a disaster. The fish had been caught out on the Cape, the other side of the country! And to make things worse, the next day was a Sunday, followed by Christmas Eve, Christmas, and Boxing Day. There would be no way Smith could get to the fish in time to preserve it for science, because, as one visiting Portuguese friend once noted to him: You may talk of Russia and the Iron Curtain, but it is nothing to South Africa on a Sunday or a holiday. That is an Iron Curtain. It shuts down, boom, boom, everything like that, and everything is dead! A Sunday followed by three Bank Holidays was the worst possible outcome, especially since the trawler that the fish had come in on had to ship out again the day after Boxing Day. Through an agonizing maze of run-arounds and unreachable telegraph lines, Smith and his team did eventually manage to stall the trawler one day, and alert the Prime Minister on Boxing Day that they (the Grahamstown team) had secured a coelacanth. Though by many he was considered an antagonist to the sciences, and doubly so to an extremely English center such as existed in Grahamstown, he saw the magnitude of this news, and saw what a boon it would be to South Africa to be able to announce it as soon as possible. With direct orders from the Prime Minister, the Minister of Defense procured a light airplane that could take Smith where he needed to go to retrieve the fish, and Smith’s team made preparations to announce everything on 27 December. The Search Beneath the Sea: The Story of the Coelacanth. J. L. B. Smith, 1956.

biomedicalephemera:

Look carefully at this fish. It may bring you good fortune!

No, no, coelacanths aren’t the fish of Yeh-Shen, but they were referred to as the “Wish Fish” in many telegrams between JLB Smith and his colleagues in Grahamstown and back in England - though there had been reports of a “foul-tasting, oily, hideous fish” going around for decades, it seemed that since the first specimen was recovered intact, all of the reports evaporated like magic. No one heard of any new “uglyfish” caught by locals, no one caught any in the tedious trawling missions sent out by Rhodes University, nothing.

The first report of a new intact Coelacanth that had been caught by a local who had seen a reward poster happened at a most inopportune time: two days before Christmas Eve! Oh, it may seem like the perfect Christmas gift to Smith, looking back, but at the time it was a disaster. The fish had been caught out on the Cape, the other side of the country! And to make things worse, the next day was a Sunday, followed by Christmas Eve, Christmas, and Boxing Day. There would be no way Smith could get to the fish in time to preserve it for science, because, as one visiting Portuguese friend once noted to him:

You may talk of Russia and the Iron Curtain, but it is nothing to South Africa on a Sunday or a holiday. That is an Iron Curtain. It shuts down, boom, boom, everything like that, and everything is dead!

A Sunday followed by three Bank Holidays was the worst possible outcome, especially since the trawler that the fish had come in on had to ship out again the day after Boxing Day.

Through an agonizing maze of run-arounds and unreachable telegraph lines, Smith and his team did eventually manage to stall the trawler one day, and alert the Prime Minister on Boxing Day that they (the Grahamstown team) had secured a coelacanth. Though by many he was considered an antagonist to the sciences, and doubly so to an extremely English center such as existed in Grahamstown, he saw the magnitude of this news, and saw what a boon it would be to South Africa to be able to announce it as soon as possible. With direct orders from the Prime Minister, the Minister of Defense procured a light airplane that could take Smith where he needed to go to retrieve the fish, and Smith’s team made preparations to announce everything on 27 December.

The Search Beneath the Sea: The Story of the Coelacanth. J. L. B. Smith, 1956.

biomedicalephemera: Latimeria chalumnae - Coelacanth The coelacanth was assumed extinct until 1938, since fossils of it had been found long before, yet hadn’t ever been caught by anyone who recognized it (it was known as the “gombessa” by the Comoro Islands fishermen, and was considered a worthless fish to be disgarded, as it tasted awful). It’s thought to have evolved over 400 million years ago, and were originally assumed to have gone extinct in the Late Cretaceous period. The Search Beneath the Sea: The Story of the Coelacanth. J.L.B. Smith, 1956.

biomedicalephemera:

Latimeria chalumnae - Coelacanth

The coelacanth was assumed extinct until 1938, since fossils of it had been found long before, yet hadn’t ever been caught by anyone who recognized it (it was known as the “gombessa” by the Comoro Islands fishermen, and was considered a worthless fish to be disgarded, as it tasted awful). It’s thought to have evolved over 400 million years ago, and were originally assumed to have gone extinct in the Late Cretaceous period.

The Search Beneath the Sea: The Story of the Coelacanth. J.L.B. Smith, 1956.

biomedicalephemera: Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer Curator of the Natural History museum in East London, South Africa, Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer was the first person to discover (in a meaningful way) that the coelacanth wasn’t extinct, but was simply the vile-tasting “gombessa” that had been thrown away for decades. While collecting specimens and samples for the East London museum, Ms. Latimer let it be known to the local fishermen that she was highly interested in any “unusual” or rare fish that they might haul aboard. In 1938, Capt. Henrik Goosen phoned her to come down to the dock, where she encountered a five-foot long oddity, which she describes: “I picked away at the layers of slime to reveal the most beautiful fish I had ever seen. It was five foot[feet] long, a pale mauvy blue with faint flecks of whitish spots; it had an iridescent silver-blue-green sheen all over. It was covered in hard scales, and it had four limb-like fins and a strange puppy dog tail.” She hauled it back to the museum in a taxi (which she notes the cabbie was none too happy about, even when she gave a generous tip - I can’t imagine any taxi driver wanting fish slime on their seats!), and discovered that she could not find the fish in any of the books available to her. She was eager to preserve the specimen, and since the museum had no preservation facilities, she (in another taxi) took it down to the morgue, which wouldn’t have it. She then attempted to contact James [JLB] Smith at Rhodes, but he was out on holiday. In the end, knowing that it could possibly end up being of dubious scientific value, she reluctantly ended up having the fish skinned and taxidermied. Luckily, the external anatomy of the coelacanth is so different from anything else in the sea, JLB Smith was able to positively identify the specimen: “There was not a shadow of a doubt,” he said. “It could have been one of those creatures of 200 million years ago come alive again.” Still, the taxidermy work had removed both the gill plates and the ossicles, which were needed for absolute confirmation that this was the fish of fossils. Now known as Latimeria chalumnae after his friend and the river it was discovered in, the discovery was announced to much excitement in the scientific community and local population. The fact that there was no complete positive proof that this fish was the fish of fossils still made many icthyologists doubtful about the specimen, but JLB Smith was absolutely determined to find proof of its identity. And thus began the search for the Lazarus fish… The Search Beneath the Sea: The Story of the Coelacanth. J. L. B. Smith, 1956.

biomedicalephemera:

Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer

Curator of the Natural History museum in East London, South Africa, Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer was the first person to discover (in a meaningful way) that the coelacanth wasn’t extinct, but was simply the vile-tasting “gombessa” that had been thrown away for decades.

While collecting specimens and samples for the East London museum, Ms. Latimer let it be known to the local fishermen that she was highly interested in any “unusual” or rare fish that they might haul aboard. In 1938, Capt. Henrik Goosen phoned her to come down to the dock, where she encountered a five-foot long oddity, which she describes:

“I picked away at the layers of slime to reveal the most beautiful fish I had ever seen. It was five foot[feet] long, a pale mauvy blue with faint flecks of whitish spots; it had an iridescent silver-blue-green sheen all over. It was covered in hard scales, and it had four limb-like fins and a strange puppy dog tail.”

She hauled it back to the museum in a taxi (which she notes the cabbie was none too happy about, even when she gave a generous tip - I can’t imagine any taxi driver wanting fish slime on their seats!), and discovered that she could not find the fish in any of the books available to her. She was eager to preserve the specimen, and since the museum had no preservation facilities, she (in another taxi) took it down to the morgue, which wouldn’t have it. She then attempted to contact James [JLB] Smith at Rhodes, but he was out on holiday.

In the end, knowing that it could possibly end up being of dubious scientific value, she reluctantly ended up having the fish skinned and taxidermied. Luckily, the external anatomy of the coelacanth is so different from anything else in the sea, JLB Smith was able to positively identify the specimen:

“There was not a shadow of a doubt,” he said. “It could have been one of those creatures of 200 million years ago come alive again.”

Still, the taxidermy work had removed both the gill plates and the ossicles, which were needed for absolute confirmation that this was the fish of fossils. Now known as Latimeria chalumnae after his friend and the river it was discovered in, the discovery was announced to much excitement in the scientific community and local population. The fact that there was no complete positive proof that this fish was the fish of fossils still made many icthyologists doubtful about the specimen, but JLB Smith was absolutely determined to find proof of its identity.

And thus began the search for the Lazarus fish…

The Search Beneath the Sea: The Story of the Coelacanth. J. L. B. Smith, 1956.

Dyspholidus typus - The Boomslang Though it belongs to the same family as king snakes and the most common “grass snakes”, the boomslang is one of the few members of Colubridae to possess a venom that’s legitimately dangerous to humans, and the fangs that are able to inject it (some members of the family have venom, but weak fangs). In fact, the fangs of the boomslang are some of the broadest and most deeply-grooved in the snake world. The venom of the boomslang is hemotoxic. That means that the proteins in the venom affect the blood of the victim, and in the case of the most common hemotoxin in boomslang venom (phospholipase A2, if you’re wondering), it causes red blood cells to rupture. Given enough time with this toxin floating around in the bloodstream, the significant thinning of the blood allows it to flow out of the capillary walls, and can flow out of any part of the body where capillaries are particularly close to the exposed surface. In other words, if you’re bitten by a boomslang and don’t seek help right after being bitten, you’ll likely end up bleeding out from your nose, eyes, mouth, ears, and genital orifices. Because of the significant blood loss associated with a wait of more than 48 hours between bite and antivenin administration (phospholipases are fairly slow-working, compared to neurotoxins and cardiotoxins), full blood transfusions are sometimes needed, to replenish the plasma, red blood cells, and platelets that were lost in the bleed-out. Illustrations of the Zoology of South Africa. Andrew Smith, 1888.

Dyspholidus typus - The Boomslang

Though it belongs to the same family as king snakes and the most common “grass snakes”, the boomslang is one of the few members of Colubridae to possess a venom that’s legitimately dangerous to humans, and the fangs that are able to inject it (some members of the family have venom, but weak fangs). In fact, the fangs of the boomslang are some of the broadest and most deeply-grooved in the snake world.

The venom of the boomslang is hemotoxic. That means that the proteins in the venom affect the blood of the victim, and in the case of the most common hemotoxin in boomslang venom (phospholipase A2, if you’re wondering), it causes red blood cells to rupture. Given enough time with this toxin floating around in the bloodstream, the significant thinning of the blood allows it to flow out of the capillary walls, and can flow out of any part of the body where capillaries are particularly close to the exposed surface.

In other words, if you’re bitten by a boomslang and don’t seek help right after being bitten, you’ll likely end up bleeding out from your nose, eyes, mouth, ears, and genital orifices. Because of the significant blood loss associated with a wait of more than 48 hours between bite and antivenin administration (phospholipases are fairly slow-working, compared to neurotoxins and cardiotoxins), full blood transfusions are sometimes needed, to replenish the plasma, red blood cells, and platelets that were lost in the bleed-out.

Illustrations of the Zoology of South Africa. Andrew Smith, 1888.

Unusual etymology: Afrikaans Origin

Afrikaans is a language derived from Cape Dutch, originally spoken by the Dutch farmers (Boers) living in South Africa. As the farmers established themselves in the Transvaal and Orange Free State, they encountered wildlife not known in the British-controlled Cape Colony, and gave several species common names that are still used today.

While scientific nomenclature for these species is still derived from Greek and Latin, the names that most of us know them by are derived from (or directly pulled from) Afrikaans.

Commonly referenced Boer-named species:

  • Aardvark (Orycteropus afer): “Earth Pig”. So-called because of its burrowing habits and appearance. Not related to pigs, but its stout body, arched back, and sparse hair can appear pig-like from afar. Insectivore.
  • Aardwolf (Proteles cristata): “Earth wolf”. An unusual relative to the hyenas that is insectivorous, and eats termites with a long, sticky tongue, not unlike the aardvark. Unrelated to wolves.
  • Boomslang (Dispholidus typus): “Tree Snake”. An almost exclusively arboreal snake of sub-Saharan Africa, the one that spawned the movie trope of snakes dropping out of trees in the jungle. Though generally shy and unencountered, still very dangerous. Its slow-onset hemotoxic venom causes massive bleeding out through every orifice of the body several hours after a bite. Eats primarily birds and lizards.
  • Dukier (Cephalophinae spp.): “Diver, ducker”. Any of the 21 species of antelope in the subfamily Cephalophinae, native to southern Africa. Named for their tendency to duck into tangled thickets where they cannot be followed. One of the few ruminants that regularly will supplement their diet with meat - either by hunting rodents or reptiles, rustling up insects, or finding carrion. The majority of their diet is still that of a browser (leaves and berries, as opposed to grasses and ground greenery).
  • Eland (Taurotragus oryx): “Elk”. Savannah antelope that’s still widespread, though decreasing in population. The second-largest extant antelope. Was widely disliked for their tendency to trample crop fields as plants came into bloom.
  • Klipspringer (Oreotragus oreotragus): “Rock jumper”. An incredibly balanced and funny-looking small antelope that can fit all four hooves onto a single dollar-piece. Unlike most antelope, they don’t live in herds, but in mating pairs. They consume the shrubbery and grass in rocky outcroppings and craglands of Africa.
  • Meerkat (Suricata suricatta): “Lake cat”. A social mongoose relative found mostly in the Kalahari desert. Carnivore that targets invertebrates, but will kill small vertebrates when opportune. “Lake cat” epithet of unknown origin - possibly a misinterpretation of the Dutch adaptation of the Sanskrit “markata”, meaning “monkey”.
  • Springbok (Antidorcas marsupialis): “Jumping antelope”. Note: the species name “marsupialis” is derived from the Latin “marsupium”, meaning “pocket” - this small, antelope is certainly not related to marsupials. The name comes from a pocket-like flap of skin extending from about halfway down the back, to the tail. Springboks appear in herds numbering in the tens of thousands in unfarmed regions of South Africa, and are the most plentiful antelope extant.

Through standardization of scientific names to almost exclusively Greek and Latin roots, science has a common language, known across country and cultural borders. However, in the English language (and many others), the common names for many species are directly pulled from their land of origin.

Knowing the etymology of the common names can sometimes tell you just as much as the etymology of the scientific names - what an animal was known for, where it was from, who encountered it the most, and what it signified to them often are implied in the names we sometimes dismiss because they’re “unscientific”. Knowing the cultures that knew the species well, and understanding the history of the species in relation to humans, can be the difference between extinction and preservation at times, and can be quite interesting, aside from that.

Not included above: Blesbok (“blaze antelope”), bontebok (“mottled antelope”), dassie (“badger”), grysbok (“grey antelope”), korhaan (“black grouse”), leguaan (“iguana”), padloper (“pathwalker”), platanna (“flat-handed”), skaapsteker (“sheep pricker”).

Sources:

Kruger Park Times

Wikipedia

Etymonline

African Ratel, or Honey Badger The earliest descriptions of the ratel that I can find describe it as a repulsive and lazy creature, with an awkward waddle and thieving ways (as they were thought to steal honey from beehives - no one realized they were after the bee larvae until the turn of the century). Really, no one took much interest in them, and as largely solitary creatures, they weren’t the easiest targets for study. Still, by the time this photograph was taken (at the Transvaal Zoological Gardens in Transvaal Colony, South Africa), people that were around the ratel had a hell of a lot more respect for them. It’s written that they were fighters with tenacious ways, whose “waddle” was caused by the size of their muscles and depth of their chest (lending them great endurance), and that they could dig as well as they could climb. Yes, the Zoological Gardens found that out the hard way. Their ratel apparently escaped at one point. I don’t know if this is the escapee or a different one, but he looks fierce. Animal Life in Africa: Book 1, Carnivora. Major James Stevenson-Hamilton, 1912.

African Ratel, or Honey Badger

The earliest descriptions of the ratel that I can find describe it as a repulsive and lazy creature, with an awkward waddle and thieving ways (as they were thought to steal honey from beehives - no one realized they were after the bee larvae until the turn of the century). Really, no one took much interest in them, and as largely solitary creatures, they weren’t the easiest targets for study.

Still, by the time this photograph was taken (at the Transvaal Zoological Gardens in Transvaal Colony, South Africa), people that were around the ratel had a hell of a lot more respect for them. It’s written that they were fighters with tenacious ways, whose “waddle” was caused by the size of their muscles and depth of their chest (lending them great endurance), and that they could dig as well as they could climb. Yes, the Zoological Gardens found that out the hard way. Their ratel apparently escaped at one point. I don’t know if this is the escapee or a different one, but he looks fierce.

Animal Life in Africa: Book 1, Carnivora. Major James Stevenson-Hamilton, 1912.

neaq: Before and After: Dassen Island was once the home of 600,000 African penguins. It’s a much different story today. Paul reports from the field with a grim history lesson.

neaq:

Before and After: Dassen Island was once the home of 600,000 African penguins. It’s a much different story today. Paul reports from the field with a grim history lesson.

Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer Curator of the Natural History museum in East London, South Africa, Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer was the first person to discover (in a meaningful way) that the coelacanth wasn’t extinct, but was simply the vile-tasting “gombessa” that had been thrown away for decades. While collecting specimens and samples for the East London museum, Ms. Latimer let it be known to the local fishermen that she was highly interested in any “unusual” or rare fish that they might haul aboard. In 1938, Capt. Henrik Goosen phoned her to come down to the dock, where she encountered a five-foot long oddity, which she describes: “I picked away at the layers of slime to reveal the most beautiful fish I had ever seen. It was five foot[feet] long, a pale mauvy blue with faint flecks of whitish spots; it had an iridescent silver-blue-green sheen all over. It was covered in hard scales, and it had four limb-like fins and a strange puppy dog tail.” She hauled it back to the museum in a taxi (which she notes the cabbie was none too happy about, even when she gave a generous tip - I can’t imagine any taxi driver wanting fish slime on their seats!), and discovered that she could not find the fish in any of the books available to her. She was eager to preserve the specimen, and since the museum had no preservation facilities, she (in another taxi) took it down to the morgue, which wouldn’t have it. She then attempted to contact James [JLB] Smith at Rhodes, but he was out on holiday. In the end, knowing that it could possibly end up being of dubious scientific value, she reluctantly ended up having the fish skinned and taxidermied. Luckily, the external anatomy of the coelacanth is so different from anything else in the sea, JLB Smith was able to positively identify the specimen: “There was not a shadow of a doubt,” he said. “It could have been one of those creatures of 200 million years ago come alive again.” Still, the taxidermy work had removed both the gill plates and the ossicles, which were needed for absolute confirmation that this was the fish of fossils. Now known as Latimeria chalumnae after his friend and the river it was discovered in, the discovery was announced to much excitement in the scientific community and local population. The fact that there was no complete positive proof that this fish was the fish of fossils still made many icthyologists doubtful about the specimen, but JLB Smith was absolutely determined to find proof of its identity. And thus began the search for the Lazarus fish… The Search Beneath the Sea: The Story of the Coelacanth. J. L. B. Smith, 1956.

Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer

Curator of the Natural History museum in East London, South Africa, Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer was the first person to discover (in a meaningful way) that the coelacanth wasn’t extinct, but was simply the vile-tasting “gombessa” that had been thrown away for decades.

While collecting specimens and samples for the East London museum, Ms. Latimer let it be known to the local fishermen that she was highly interested in any “unusual” or rare fish that they might haul aboard. In 1938, Capt. Henrik Goosen phoned her to come down to the dock, where she encountered a five-foot long oddity, which she describes:

“I picked away at the layers of slime to reveal the most beautiful fish I had ever seen. It was five foot[feet] long, a pale mauvy blue with faint flecks of whitish spots; it had an iridescent silver-blue-green sheen all over. It was covered in hard scales, and it had four limb-like fins and a strange puppy dog tail.”

She hauled it back to the museum in a taxi (which she notes the cabbie was none too happy about, even when she gave a generous tip - I can’t imagine any taxi driver wanting fish slime on their seats!), and discovered that she could not find the fish in any of the books available to her. She was eager to preserve the specimen, and since the museum had no preservation facilities, she (in another taxi) took it down to the morgue, which wouldn’t have it. She then attempted to contact James [JLB] Smith at Rhodes, but he was out on holiday.

In the end, knowing that it could possibly end up being of dubious scientific value, she reluctantly ended up having the fish skinned and taxidermied. Luckily, the external anatomy of the coelacanth is so different from anything else in the sea, JLB Smith was able to positively identify the specimen:

“There was not a shadow of a doubt,” he said. “It could have been one of those creatures of 200 million years ago come alive again.”

Still, the taxidermy work had removed both the gill plates and the ossicles, which were needed for absolute confirmation that this was the fish of fossils. Now known as Latimeria chalumnae after his friend and the river it was discovered in, the discovery was announced to much excitement in the scientific community and local population. The fact that there was no complete positive proof that this fish was the fish of fossils still made many icthyologists doubtful about the specimen, but JLB Smith was absolutely determined to find proof of its identity.

And thus began the search for the Lazarus fish…

The Search Beneath the Sea: The Story of the Coelacanth. J. L. B. Smith, 1956.

Look carefully at this fish. It may bring you good fortune! No, no, coelacanths aren’t the fish of Yeh-Shen, but they were referred to as the “Wish Fish” in many telegrams between JLB Smith and his colleagues in Grahamstown and back in England - though there had been reports of a “foul-tasting, oily, hideous fish” going around for decades, it seemed that since the first specimen was recovered intact, all of the reports evaporated like magic. No one heard of any new “uglyfish” caught by locals, no one caught any in the tedious trawling missions sent out by Rhodes University, nothing. The first report of a new intact Coelacanth that had been caught by a local who had seen a reward poster happened at a most inopportune time: two days before Christmas Eve! Oh, it may seem like the perfect Christmas gift to Smith, looking back, but at the time it was a disaster. The fish had been caught out on the Cape, the other side of the country! And to make things worse, the next day was a Sunday, followed by Christmas Eve, Christmas, and Boxing Day. There would be no way Smith could get to the fish in time to preserve it for science, because, as one visiting Portuguese friend once noted to him: You may talk of Russia and the Iron Curtain, but it is nothing to South Africa on a Sunday or a holiday. That is an Iron Curtain. It shuts down, boom, boom, everything like that, and everything is dead! A Sunday followed by three Bank Holidays was the worst possible outcome, especially since the trawler that the fish had come in on had to ship out again the day after Boxing Day. Through an agonizing maze of run-arounds and unreachable telegraph lines, Smith and his team did eventually manage to stall the trawler one day, and alert the Prime Minister on Boxing Day that they (the Grahamstown team) had secured a coelacanth. Though by many he was considered an antagonist to the sciences, and doubly so to an extremely English center such as existed in Grahamstown, he saw the magnitude of this news, and saw what a boon it would be to South Africa to be able to announce it as soon as possible. With direct orders from the Prime Minister, the Minister of Defense procured a light airplane that could take Smith where he needed to go to retrieve the fish, and Smith’s team made preparations to announce everything on 27 December. The Search Beneath the Sea: The Story of the Coelacanth. J. L. B. Smith, 1956.

Look carefully at this fish. It may bring you good fortune!

No, no, coelacanths aren’t the fish of Yeh-Shen, but they were referred to as the “Wish Fish” in many telegrams between JLB Smith and his colleagues in Grahamstown and back in England - though there had been reports of a “foul-tasting, oily, hideous fish” going around for decades, it seemed that since the first specimen was recovered intact, all of the reports evaporated like magic. No one heard of any new “uglyfish” caught by locals, no one caught any in the tedious trawling missions sent out by Rhodes University, nothing.

The first report of a new intact Coelacanth that had been caught by a local who had seen a reward poster happened at a most inopportune time: two days before Christmas Eve! Oh, it may seem like the perfect Christmas gift to Smith, looking back, but at the time it was a disaster. The fish had been caught out on the Cape, the other side of the country! And to make things worse, the next day was a Sunday, followed by Christmas Eve, Christmas, and Boxing Day. There would be no way Smith could get to the fish in time to preserve it for science, because, as one visiting Portuguese friend once noted to him:

You may talk of Russia and the Iron Curtain, but it is nothing to South Africa on a Sunday or a holiday. That is an Iron Curtain. It shuts down, boom, boom, everything like that, and everything is dead!

A Sunday followed by three Bank Holidays was the worst possible outcome, especially since the trawler that the fish had come in on had to ship out again the day after Boxing Day.

Through an agonizing maze of run-arounds and unreachable telegraph lines, Smith and his team did eventually manage to stall the trawler one day, and alert the Prime Minister on Boxing Day that they (the Grahamstown team) had secured a coelacanth. Though by many he was considered an antagonist to the sciences, and doubly so to an extremely English center such as existed in Grahamstown, he saw the magnitude of this news, and saw what a boon it would be to South Africa to be able to announce it as soon as possible. With direct orders from the Prime Minister, the Minister of Defense procured a light airplane that could take Smith where he needed to go to retrieve the fish, and Smith’s team made preparations to announce everything on 27 December.

The Search Beneath the Sea: The Story of the Coelacanth. J. L. B. Smith, 1956.

Latimeria chalumnae - Coelacanth The coelacanth was assumed extinct until 1938, since fossils of it had been found long before, yet hadn’t ever been caught by anyone who recognized it (it was known as the “gombessa” by the Comoro Islands fishermen, and was considered a worthless fish to be disgarded, as it tasted awful). It’s thought to have evolved over 400 million years ago, and were originally assumed to have gone extinct in the Late Cretaceous period. The Search Beneath the Sea: The Story of the Coelacanth. J.L.B. Smith, 1956.

Latimeria chalumnae - Coelacanth

The coelacanth was assumed extinct until 1938, since fossils of it had been found long before, yet hadn’t ever been caught by anyone who recognized it (it was known as the “gombessa” by the Comoro Islands fishermen, and was considered a worthless fish to be disgarded, as it tasted awful). It’s thought to have evolved over 400 million years ago, and were originally assumed to have gone extinct in the Late Cretaceous period.

The Search Beneath the Sea: The Story of the Coelacanth. J.L.B. Smith, 1956.

Rhincodon typus Smith - Whale Shark So you know how whale sharks are filter-feeders that eat tons and tons of phytoplankton and zooplankton? Well, the filming of the Planet Earth and Blue Planet series captured a massive amount of footage of a previously-unknown food source to them. It turns out that during the spawning seasons, large numbers of whale sharks follow shoals of schooling fish, like the sardines. And then eat massive amounts of sperm and eggs. Tasty! Natural History of the Whale Shark. E. W. Gudger, 1915.

Rhincodon typus Smith - Whale Shark

So you know how whale sharks are filter-feeders that eat tons and tons of phytoplankton and zooplankton? Well, the filming of the Planet Earth and Blue Planet series captured a massive amount of footage of a previously-unknown food source to them.

It turns out that during the spawning seasons, large numbers of whale sharks follow shoals of schooling fish, like the sardines. And then eat massive amounts of sperm and eggs. Tasty!

Natural History of the Whale Shark. E. W. Gudger, 1915.