h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The Times reports the death of the museum curator Marjorie Courtney-Latimer. It was Miss Courtney-Latimer who, in 1938, discovered a coelacanth amongst the catch of a South African trawler. Previously, the fish had been thought extinct for 80 million years. With an African helper she packed the five foot long, 127 pound fish into a taxi and took it back to the museum where her chairman was dismissive: “ Mistress Madge, you’re making such a fuss about it. It’s nothing but a rock cod. All your geese are swans “.
Undeterred, she sent a drawing of the discovery to a celebrated amateur ichthyologist, Dr J. L. B. Smith, who was based a 100 miles away at Rhodes University. He wired back: MOST IMPORTANT PRESERVE SKELETON AND GILLS FISH DESCRIBED.
The local mortuary and cold store both refused to house the fish so Courtenay-Latimer had it stuffed. It was then transported to Rhodes University by train, under armed guard for fear of piracy. Dr Smith published a description of the fish in the March edition of Nature under a headline taken from Pliny: “ Ex Africa Semper Aliquid Novi “. The fish was named Latimeria chalumnae by Smith after its discoverer and the Chalumna River, where it had been caught. Miss Courtenay-Latimer was 97 when she died. The Times notes, rather coyly, that though never married, she was no stranger to romance.



That's it. I just thought you'd be interested

Thank you for thinking of me, but she died in 2004, so perhaps the page you found had the current date on it but was an archived article?

Funnily enough, today I was actually thinking about the old blue fish myself when I read a news story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6627425.stm about a ban on deep trawler fishing. This is one of the problems for coelacanths at the moment, since the nets go deep enough to accidentally catch them and they die when brought to the surface. I wrote about this in my journal a while ago, which you might be interested in. F33494?thread=1934924

The ban doesn't seem to cover the East African coast yet, but it's a start.

Dear Coelecanth

Today is obviousoy the day for discovering lost friends. !

I seem to remember having practically the same conversation with you about your name when I first joined. Sadly I cannot remember what year it was exactly. How are your lovely daughters. May I add you to my list of friends again?

I have tried twice to reply to the invite, to say that really I think I was a bit over ambitious to think I could make the meet. So perhaps you could count me out. I hope that I shall be able to read about it and see some phiotographs.

Very interesting about Courtney-Latimer. I knew about Prof. Smith's involvement in the finding and preserving of the fish.I often saw him walking around the campus at Rhodes University.

With so many good wishes,

Christiane
AlsoRan80