Items related to A Fish Caught in Time: The Search for the Coelacanth
Synopsis
Book by SAMANTHA WEINBERG
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Review
In 1938, an alert young South African museum curator named Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer came upon a curious specimen in a fisherman's nets: a fish with "four limb-like fins and a strange little puppy dog tail," one that she thought resembled not a living being so much as a china ornament. When she could turn up no written descriptions of the find, she turned to other scientists for help, touching off a worldwide wave of interest in the creature that would come to be called the "coelacanth," long thought to be extinct, and now celebrated as one of the world's oldest species.
That interest took many forms, writes journalist Samantha Weinberg in her entertaining and instructive case study in scientific detective work. It spurred the development of new deep-sea craft to explore the farthest reaches of the ocean; it touched off more than one controversy over the coelacanth's lineage, and even over which nation claimed sovereignty over its oceanic haunts; and it launched or advanced the careers of dozens of researchers. The coelacanth continues to make news. In 1998, a young American scholar found a specimen in Indonesia, far from the western Indian Ocean waters where the coelacanth was thought to dwell. Although some scientists decried the discovery as a hoax at worst and an aberration at best, the find showed that the creature's range was widespread. It demonstrated, too, that international cooperation was necessary if the coelacanth were to be protected in the future, "continuing to exist," as Weinberg writes, "after this extraordinary duration of time." --Gregory McNamee
About the Author
Samantha Weinberg is a British writer and traveler. She has reported from the four corners of the world for American, African, and European newspapers and magazines. She divides her time between her suitcase and a thatched cottage in Wiltshire, England.
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A Fish Caught in Time
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HarperCollins Publishers, United Kingdom, London, 1999
ISBN 10: 1857029062
ISBN 13: 9781857029062
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Paperback. Condition: Very Good. A unique history of our oldest living ancestor, thought to have been extinct for 70 million years. A gripping story of obsession and adventure set in the exotic islands of the Indian Ocean. In 1938, Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer, a young South African museum curator, caught sight of a specimen among a fishermans trawl that she knew was special. With limb-like protuberances culminating in fins the strange fish was unlike anything she had ever seen. The museum board members dismissed it as a common lungfish, but when Marjorie eventually contacted Professor JLB Smith, he immediately identified her fish as a coelacanth a species known to have lived 400 million years ago, and believed by many scientists to be the evolutionary missing link the first creature to crawl out of the sea. Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer had thus made the centurys greatest zoological discovery. But Smith needed a live or frozen specimen to verify the discovery, so began his search for another coelacanth, to which he devoted his life. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged. Seller Inventory # GOR002717315
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A Fish Caught in Time
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A FISH CAUGHT IN TIME: THE SEARCH FOR THE COELACANTH. By Samantha Weinberg.
Published by
Fourth Estate. London. 1999, 1999
ISBN 10: 1857029062
ISBN 13: 9781857029062
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ALL UK PARCELS SENT TRACKED! ALL OVERSEAS PARCELS SENT AIRMAIL, TRACKED! (S/hand, Paperback, 1999 ). 1999 1st paperback edition. Small 8vo (128 x 179mm). Ppxvi,239. B/w photographs, illustrations, maps, bibliography. Good second-hand paperback. An interesting account of the discovery of the coelacanth in 1938 and the subsequent fourteen-year search for a complete specimen. Samantha Weinberg describes subsequent extensive research up to 1998, including the discovery of the Indonesian population of these fish, as well as observation of live specimens. . Seller Inventory # 53493
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A Fish Caught in Time
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A Fish Caught in Time
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ISBN 10: 1857029062
ISBN 13: 9781857029062
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