Yes, Smith described the specimen, and searched for more.
His book is titled, _Old four legs_, and I have a first edition, but it
was a library discard, so is not worth as much as it might be.
However, it's worth a great deal to me.
In recent years there have been two other noteworthy books detailing
the history of the coelocanth in modern science and adventure, and to
tell the truth, though I own copies of both, I cannot at the moment
recall either book titles or author's names. Terrible, isn't it, to
get old. The books are at home. Oh, one of them is titled _A fish out
of time_.
I wouldn't characterize the story of the coelocanth and the search for
additional specimens in the way the first post did. Rather, I would
recognize that NOVA, for the same reasons other television shows do,
hypes its presentation. The science and the field work themselves are
exciting enough for intellectual reasons, without trying to put it in
Hollywood terms. However, the story of the description of coelocanths
from the population around Indonesia shows how unethical people can
be. Look it up.
Dave
David L. McNeely, Ph.D., Professor of Biology
Langston University; P.O. Box 1500
Langston, OK 73050; email: dlmcneely at lunet.edu
telephone: (405) 466-6025; fax: 405) 466-3307
home page http://www.lunet.edu/mcneely/index.htm
"Where are we going?" "I don't know, are we there yet?"
----- Original Message -----
From: Mysteryman <bestfish at alaweb.com>
Date: Wednesday, October 26, 2005 11:07 am
Subject: Re: NANFA-L-- Last Night's Nova
> ichthos at comcast.net wrote:
>
> >Marjorie Courtenay Latimer discovered the coelacanth.
> >JLB Smith named it Latimeria after the young museum curatrix.
> >
> >Chris Scharpf
> >Baltimore
> >
> >
> *sigh*
> Fine, if you want to get technical, Smith described it, Latimer
> recognized it as something noteworthy that Smith should
> investigate, and
> some unknown Comoran fishermen discovered it.
> /------------------------------------------------------------------
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