Gazelle : The Palestinian Biological Bulletin (ISSN 0178 – 6288) . Number 15, July 1987, pp. 1-8.

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The Coelacanth (Latimeria chalumnae) in the
Science and Natural History Museum, State of
Kuwait
By: Norman Ali Bassam Ali Taher Khalaf
On Friday 14.03.1987, I have visited with the family, the Science & Natural
History Museum in Kuwait City, State of Kuwait.
One of the various Halls was the Fish Hall. It contains a big collection of local
fishes, which was caught off the Arabian Gulf coast of Kuwait.
A rare species of fish was also displayed, the Coelacanth. It was a gift from the
Government of the Islamic Federal Republic of the Comoros to the Kuwaiti
Foreign Minister H.E. Al-Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, who in
turn gave it as a gift to the Science & Natural History Museum in August 1976.
David Attenborough (1979) in his book "Life on Earth" writes: "Many species of
coelacanth have been found as fossils. They are not large - thirty centimetres or
so in length. Some specimens have been preserved in miraculous 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) continues: “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 heavy armoured scales. After the catch had been
landed at East London, the curator of the small local museum, Miss CourtenayLatimer, came down to look it over. She noticed this peculiar fish and although
she was not a fish specialist, she became convinced that it was of great
importance. She wrote to Professor J.B.L. Smith of Grahamstown University, the
greatest authority on African fish, describing it briefly. Before he could get to the
specimen, its entrails had decomposed so badly that they had to be thrown away,
Gazelle : The Palestinian Biological Bulletin – Number 15 – July 1987