Unusual coelacanth fossil find

[caption id="attachment_101393" align="alignright" width="225"] FISH MATTER: Dr Robert Gess works on the shale which delivered a treasure trove of fossilised young coelacanths. INSET: What the ancient fish looked like[/caption]

MORE than 30 specimens of Africa’s earliest coelacanth have been found in a 360-million-year-old fossil estuary near Grahamstown.

All the specimens found are of juveniles, and this means that the species was using the estuary as a nursery.

Dr Robert Gess, who analysed the specimens of the new fossil species Serenichthys kowiensis while completing his PhD at Wits University, said: “This is interesting because it is the earliest record we have of the breeding behaviour of coelacanths. Estuaries are today used by fish in exactly the same way.”

He said the extreme age of the fossils can be put into context by considering that the earliest hominid fossils date back to five million years ago and that non-bird dinosaurs died out 60 million years ago.

“It was a time when four-legged beasts were just about to step ashore,” Gess said.

The fossils, which came from black shale originally disturbed by road works, were found less than 100km from the major find of 1938 when the first living coelacanth was discovered near East London.

This was after scientists believed they had been extinct for 66 million years.

The new fossils have been deposited in the palaeontological collection of the Albany Natural History Museum in Grahamstown. -Tanya Farber