Is It Just Us?
Or does something sound weird about this story?
JAKARTA, Indonesia - An Indonesian fisherman hooked a rare coelacanth, a species once thought as extinct as dinosaurs, and briefly kept the "living fossil" alive in a quarantined pool.
Justinus Lahama caught the four-foot, 110-pound fish early Saturday off Sulawesi island near Bunaken National Marine Park, which has some of the highest marine biodiversity in the world.
The fish died 17 hours later, an extraordinary survival time, marine biologist Lucky Lumingas said Sunday.
"The fish should have died within two hours because this species only lives in deep, cold-sea environment," he said. Lumingas works at the local Sam Ratulangi University, which plans to study the carcass.
The coelacanth (pronounced SEE-la-kanth) was believed to be extinct for 65 million years until one was found in 1938 off Africa's coast, igniting worldwide interest. Several other specimens have since been discovered, including another off Sulawesi island in 1998.
Do the names seem odd to you? Justinus? Lucky? In Indonesia? Bad reporting? Bad editing? Descendants of Roman gamblers or mob bosses in Indonesia? We simply report, you decide on this weighty matter.
World news | Gaius Sunday, 20 May , 2007
By Purple Avenger, Monday, 21 May , 2007 @ 3:54 am
Living dinosaur or not, I want to know if it was tasty.