For decades, the coelacanthexisted only in fossil records—until one turned up in a South African fishing net. It was 1938 when a museum curator in East London noticed an unfamiliar fish in a haul from ...

In a world where new species are constantly being discovered, some creatures remain hidden in the depths of the ocean, defying our understanding of life itself. One of the most extraordinary examples?

The unexpected capture of a living coelacanth in the 1930s was 'the most sensational natural history discovery' of the century. In April 1939, New Zealand's Auckland Star proclaimed that the Loch Ness ...

This large, jelly-filled cavity in the center of the snout is thought to be an electrosensory device for detecting weak electrical impulses given off by prey. Evidence for this function first came ...

Our planet’s first known mass extinction happened about 440 million years ago. Species diversity on Earth had been increasing ...

This story appears in the March 2011 issue of National Geographic magazine. It's not every day that a living fossil shows up in a fisherman's net. But that's what happened in 1938, when a South ...

An curved arrow pointing right. In the basement of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, sits a container with two coelacanths preserved in alcohol. Not too long ago, scientists ...

Coelacanths are difficult to classify. They have many characteristics in common with sharks, and yet in certain characteristics they more closely resemble other types of fish. In this activity ...

Some creatures have remained unchanged for millions of years, surviving drastic climate shifts and evolution. Meet 10 living fossils that still roam the Earth today.

Beneath the ocean's crushing blackness lies an ecosystem that has learned to thrive without sunlight or warmth. It's a world full of organisms with unique adaptations to such a challenging environment ...