Gazelle : The Palestinian Biological Bulletin (ISSN 0178 – 6288) . Number 111, March 2014, pp. 1-9. | Page 4

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detail with every scale and fin-ray present. A juvenile was uncovered in the
rocks of Illinois with traces of its yolk sack beneath its belly, plain to see. They
are most abundant in deposits about 400 million years old, but thereafter they
become scarcer and none has been found in rocks younger than 70 million years.
Since they were flourishing during the period when the land was invaded and
since they certainly possessed limb-like fins, it seemed likely that they were the
creatures from which the first land vertebrates were descended. Their fossils
were therefore studied with great care to try and determine exactly how they
moved and how they breathed. But scientists reconciled themselves to the fact
that the answers to such questions would never be known with certainty since
the fish had obviously become extinct long ago (Attenborough 1979, Khalaf
1987).

The Coelacanth (Latimeria chalumnae) Model at the Zoologisches Forschungsmuseum
Alexander Koenig in Bonn, Germany. Photo by: Prof. Dr. Norman Ali Bassam Khalafvon Jaffa. 06.01.2003. http://www.flickr.com/photos/50022881@N00/10313438506/
And then, in 1938, a trawler fishing off the coast of South Africa brought up a
very strange fish. It was large, nearly two metres long, with powerful jaws and
Gazelle : The Palestinian Biological Bulletin – Number 111 – March 2014