Coelacanth

Coelacanth is an order of lobe-finned fishes related to lungfishes and represented by two living species, Latimeria chalumnae and Latimeria menadoensis, as well as many fossils of extinct species. Among living Coelacanths, adult females are larger in size than males and the largest recorded specimen of Coelacanth was 178 centimeters in length and weighed 98 kilograms. It is considered to be a critically endangered species and an estimated 1,000 fishes are alive today.

Evolutionist scientists claim the fossil record of Coelacanths now extends from what they call the early Devonian (410-415 million years ago) to the late Cretaceous (about 80 million years ago) but the most dramatic discovery occurred in 1938 when Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer, curator of a museum in East London, South Africa, found a curious fish in the catch brought back by a trawler just before Christmas. In February 1939 ichthyologist James Leonard Brierley Smith identified the fish as a coelacanth and named it Latimeria chalumnae after its discoverer and the Chalumna River where it was caught. The next specimen of Latimeria turned up in 1952, and since then many have been both caught and studied live in the wild and a second species Latimeria menadoensis was discovered in Indonesia in 1997.

Modern Coelacanths are often called 'living fossils,' but the two modern species are different from their ancient relatives. According to the view of biologists and zoologists, the fact that coelacanths exist today is no different from the fact that in today's oceans we find modern species of sharks or starfish that differ from their fossilized counterparts. Living Coelacanths are simply so rare (and so much rarer than their ancient relatives) that they escaped the notice of scientists until the 20th century. George Gaylord Simpson sums up the living coelacanths' situation thus:

Latimeria is very different from any Devonian fish. It is also different from any late Cretaceous crossopterygian known from fossils approximately sixty-five million years old. Until Latimeria was found, seen, and named by a zoologist in 1940 it was believed that the order of fishes Crossopterygii, represented by fossils from early Devonian to late Cretaceous, was extinct. Latimeria does belong to this order, but in its "hidden" years since the late Cretaceous it had evolved considerably. It is therefore distinguished from all fossil crossopterygians by its representation of a separate family, Latimeridae. No fossils of this family are known but it must have had members in or through the present Recent Cenozoic era. The large hiatus in the fossil record has a probable explanation in the fact that Latimeria is confined in a relatively small area of deep sea in the western part of the Indian Ocean. No fossils of any sort are known from that area or from any region that has been continuously under deep oceanic water throughout the Cenozoic.

The creationist viewpoint is that evolutionist scientists have incorrectly claimed that the coelacanth existed on earth before 65 million years and became extinct. This view held by the evolutionists has been criticized by scholars. Critics have pointed that after a coelacanth was found in 1938 off Africa’s coast, evolutionists have been unable to provide any explanation how these species survived for so long time. -- despite the explanations of scientists such as Simpson. Since 1938, many coelacanths have been caught. Scholars, citing the evidences obtained from numerous fossils, explained many fossils were buried under water-borne sediment after the Great Flood. This prevented decay and created an exquisite degree of preservation. This is why coelacanths are not extinct today.