Case file · Cryptid

Coelacanth in the Manado fish market

In September 1997 biologist Mark Erdmann saw a coelacanth, a 'living fossil' known only from Africa, on sale in a fish market in Manado, North Sulawesi.

1997 CE · 1.49, 124.84 · status: explained

The account

Local fishermen knew it as raja laut ('king of the sea'). A live specimen was caught in 1998 and the Indonesian coelacanth was named Latimeria menadoensis in 1999.

Sources

  1. Wikipedia: Indonesian coelacanth
Open it in the living atlas