Ancient Monster Fish Thought Extinct Turns Up Alive in South Africa

Bright Side

It was supposed to be gone forever — a relic from the time of dinosaurs. 🦖 But off the coast of South Africa, scientists just found a living coelacanth, a massive “monster fish” once thought to have vanished 65 million years ago. This incredible discovery is rewriting what we know about evolution and survival in the deep ocean. In this video, we’ll dive into how this prehistoric creature stayed hidden for so long — and what its return means for science. The coelacanth’s body, biology, and DNA hold secrets that could explain how life first crawled onto land. It’s living proof that some ancient legends never died. 🌊✨  Animation is created by Bright Side.  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  Music from TheSoul Sound: https://thesoul-sound.com/   Check our Bright Side podcast on Spotify and leave a positive review! https://open.spotify.com/show/0hUkPxD34jRLrMrJux4VxV  Subscribe to Bright Side: https://goo.gl/rQTJZz  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  Our Social Media:  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brightplanet/  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brightside.official  TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@brightside.official?lang=en   Stock materials (photos, footages and other):  https://www.depositphotos.com  https://www.shutterstock.com  https://www.eastnews.ru  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  For more videos and articles visit: http://www.brightside.me  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  This video is made for entertainment purposes. We do not make any warranties about the completeness, safety and reliability. Any action you take upon the information in this video is strictly at your own risk, and we will not be liable for any damages or losses. It is the viewer's responsibility to use judgement, care and precaution if you plan to replicate.

Transcript

00:00A pre-Christmas miracle happened near the mouth of South Africa's Chalumna River on December 22, 1938.

00:08Marjorie Courtney Latimer, the curator of East London Museum, was on her routine visit to the docks.

00:14She was checking if there were any unusual catches from local fishermen.

00:18Suddenly, she spotted a strange fin sticking out of a pile of discarded fish.

00:24Intrigued, she cleaned off the slime to reveal an incredible discovery.

00:28A pale blue fish with silvery flecks, thin scales, and four fins that looked almost like limbs.

00:37And it was huge too, five feet long, weighing about 127 pounds.

00:44Marjorie actually specialized in birds, but she had always been fascinated by the natural world, including the ocean.

00:51She didn't know what the fish was, but she had a feeling that it was something special.

00:56So, she had the fish loaded into a taxi and taken to her museum.

01:02She then went through lots of reference books, but no matter how hard Marjorie tried, she couldn't identify the species.

01:09She decided to show it to the chairman of the museum's board, but he just dismissed it as a common rock cod.

01:16Marjorie didn't listen to him.

01:18The creature fascinated her so much that she kept studying it, and even tried to preserve it by having it taxidermied, although she couldn't save the organs.

01:28Desperate for answers, she reached out to a fish expert, J.L.B. Smith.

01:33But tough luck. He was away at that moment.

01:36When Smith finally saw the drawing, he got instantly intrigued.

01:39By January, he finally wrote the response to Marjorie, saying the fish was giving him sleepless nights.

01:47He was eager to see it in person.

01:49On February 16, when he finally arrived at the museum and laid eyes on the fish, he was stunned.

01:56Suddenly, it dawned on him that he was looking at a coelacanth, a species believed to have gone extinct 66 million years ago.

02:05This made it a Lazarus species, an extinct species that reappears after a long absence in the fossil record.

02:14It was like seeing a fossil come to life.

02:17Scientists thought that this creature had vanished with the dinosaurs.

02:21Thanks to Marjorie's persistence, this became one of the most remarkable biological finds of the 20th century.

02:27The entire genus, Latimeria, was named in her honor.

02:31Turns out, fish was vibing in the deep ocean waters, completely unbothered by an asteroid strike for millions of years.

02:40Today, at least two species of coelacanth are known to exist.

02:44Both come from this ancient lineage that survived the test of time.

02:48They mostly live in the Indian Ocean, with some chilling around Indonesia here and there.

02:54Coelacanths look and behave very differently from other fish.

02:58Their creepy fins actually move in a way similar to how human arms and legs move.

03:04They also have a special joint in their skull that lets them raise a part of their head while feeding.

03:10That's because they're related to tetrapods.

03:13Those guys that were the first to step out of the waters to the land.

03:17Michael Smith is a British naturalist.

03:20On July 2018, he was exploring the remote Wandiwoi mountain range in Papua, Indonesia.

03:26He was there to search for rare, pretty flowers called rhododendrons, but he accidentally took a photo of a funky-looking creature.

03:36Smith got very curious about this animal.

03:38He then returned for another expedition, this time with a local guide.

03:43He spent 10 tough days searching high in the mountains.

03:46The terrain was harsh, with constant rain, slippery ground, and leeches crawling into their boots.

03:53When they were already exhausted and close to giving up, the miracle happened.

03:58The team finally spotted and snapped a picture of the animal.

04:02This cute thing turned out to be the Wandiwoi tree kangaroo, the one thought to be extinct for 90 years.

04:08The first time it was discovered was 1928.

04:13It's a sad story.

04:14A biologist spotted it while studying the area, and this was the first and the last time we saw that animal.

04:22But, as it turned out, it wasn't extinct at all.

04:25It's just a very elusive and sneaky creature.

04:28This marsupial lives in small, isolated, steep, and misty forests.

04:33Very few people venture there, all because of the reasons we mentioned.

04:38The rugged terrain, dense bamboo thickets, lack of water.

04:42Even the local hunters had never seen one.

04:45They're super cute, with their round face, reddish fur, and appearance that looks like a mix of a monkey and a bear.

04:51It's a weird type of kangaroo that jumps on the trees, not the land.

04:56When Michael Smith rediscovered it, he immediately contacted experts, including a specialist on tree kangaroos.

05:02The discovery was confirmed.

05:06Even though it's still hard to catch these creatures in the wild, they're still a mystery to science, and scientists try to protect the species.

05:14In 1996, researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society were walking around the meat market in Thakkek, Laos.

05:22Suddenly, they spotted a bunch of weird rats.

05:25Yeah, it may seem to be a common thing for a market, but those were no simple rats at all.

05:30At first, they thought it was a new species.

05:32They called this new rodent the Laotian rock rat.

05:36This animal was so different from other rodents that biologists wanted to place it in its own family.

05:42But in 2006, Mary Dawson and her team challenged this idea.

05:47They suggested that the Laotian rock rat might actually belong to an ancient family of rodents, the ones that were believed to have been extinct for 11 million years.

05:58In the same year, scientists finally captured and documented a live specimen.

06:04And guess what?

06:05Those were indeed those ancient rats.

06:08They didn't go extinct.

06:10They just preferred to avoid the spotlight and decided to go vibe in the limestone karsts of Laos and a small part of Vietnam.

06:17Turns out, the locals were even familiar with the rodent, regularly trapping it for food.

06:23Right, that must be the true reason for their hermit lifestyle.

06:27Now, these guys are a huge interest for scientists and are being studied carefully.

06:31In 2019, some scientists went on a joint expedition on Fernandina Island in the Galapagos Archipelago.

06:40During the expedition, the team started noticing weird things.

06:44Tracks, scat, and claw marks on trees.

06:48By following them, they suddenly discovered the culprit.

06:51A mysterious turtle that was sitting on a high elevation on the volcanic island.

06:57It was a lone female tortoise.

07:00They nicknamed her Fernanda.

07:02That's because they recognized her as a Fernandina giant tortoise.

07:06A species that was thought to have been extinct for 112 years.

07:11The last time we've ever seen this species was in 1906.

07:16When scientists found a male tortoise and sent it to the California Academy of Sciences.

07:21They thought that volcanic eruptions and extensive hunting caused the species to completely disappear.

07:29This was a huge deal.

07:31It provided hope for the survival of the Fernandina giant tortoise.

07:36Park rangers said that they saw signs of at least two other tortoises.

07:40So maybe they'll be able to find them soon.

07:43The Galapagos Conservancy has launched fundraising efforts to support further expeditions.

07:48In July of 2007, Luis Enrique Minguez was hiking in La Palma, a small island in the Canary Islands.

07:57He's a researcher in the Institute of Ecology and Conservation.

08:01While he was walking through the northeastern part of the island, he spotted an interesting lizard.

08:07The lizard was almost 12 inches long.

08:10He saw it near a forest trail, about 147 feet above sea level.

08:15Minguez took a photo of the lizard and shared it with his buddy researchers.

08:20After seeing the pictures, they realized that it was the long-lost La Palma giant lizard.

08:25This species was presumed to be extinct for centuries.

08:29They thought that it disappeared within the last 500 years due to being hunted by cats and habitat destruction.

08:36Unfortunately, even though they were super hyped up at first, things didn't go so well next time.

08:42They did some follow-up expeditions in October of 2007, and then some more.

08:48But they couldn't spot the lizard anywhere again since then.

08:52The lizard probably lived in very high and dry spots of the island.

08:57Researchers hope to discover at least some of the lizards in the future and help them thrive once again.

09:02There are plenty of fish in the sea.

09:05Some of them look totally like Nemo or Dory.

09:09Then there's the butterfly fish and fancy guppy, which is indeed really fancy.

09:15And then there's...

09:16Ah! What on earth is that?

09:18I would definitely not pay for a diving experience to see this guy.

09:22The anglerfish has the unofficial title of the ugliest animal in the world.

09:27But I wouldn't dare to break that news to it.

09:32There are more than 200 species of anglerfish currently swimming somewhere in the gloomy depths of the Atlantic and Antarctic oceans,

09:41up to a mile below the surface.

09:43Some of them prefer different living conditions, the shallow tropical environments.

09:48Different kinds of anglerfish vary in shape and size, from the famous black sea devil to frogfish, monkfish, footballfish, goosefish, batfish, and sea toad.

10:00The larger ones can be half as long as a full-sized bed, but most are less than a foot long.

10:06Since the choice of meals where these guys live isn't that huge, they had to come up with a unique hunting strategy.

10:14They don't waste their priceless life energy on following prospective prey.

10:19Instead, they use a piece of dorsal spine that sticks above their mouths like a fishing pole.

10:25Hence, the name of the fish.

10:26There's a sack of bioluminescent bacteria that glows brightly in the dark at the end of that rod.

10:33The light lures prey, and all the anglerfish has to do is wait, and then enjoy its lunch delivered right to its mouth.

10:41Their bodies are pliable and huge, so they can easily swallow prey twice their size.

10:47Deep-sea anglerfish eat whatever they can find.

10:50Species that live in more shallow water aren't picky either, and can eat anything from shrimp to snails and small fish.

10:58Only female anglerfish have the cool fishing rod feature, though.

11:02So, what about their males?

11:05Finding a soulmate deep under the sea isn't that easy.

11:09I mean, literally, there's no light down there.

11:12Plus, there are frigid temperatures and low oxygen levels.

11:16Anglerfish can't afford to go on many dates in those conditions.

11:20So, they mate for life.

11:22And, before you go aww about it, I have to tell you, they do it in quite a special way.

11:29Male anglerfish are much smaller than their ladies.

11:33The contrast is so striking that when researchers first got interested in their love life,

11:38they thought those males were actually the offspring, or larvae, hanging out next to their moms.

11:44Certain anglerfish male species have receptors that alert them that there's a female nearby.

11:50After they mate, the male bites into his woman and stays attached to her head, belly, near her tail, and other areas he can access.

11:59While they morph together forever, the female fish gets the male's cells, DNA, and reproductive organs, but loses her immune response cells.

12:09The male gets free permanent housing and nutrition.

12:12Given the current real estate prices, it sounds like a dream.

12:16But that accommodation is shared by up to eight males, and they can't move out if they ever feel like it.

12:22You're unlikely to meet this deep-sea fish in real life.

12:27But if you meet an anglerfish in your favorite video game, remember that you can easily out-swim it and make it kinder to you with tranquilizing arrows.

12:37Once you befriend it, the anglerfish can be your scout and help you discover new areas with its bioluminescent pods.

12:44Back in the real world, down in the twilight zone of the ocean, about 650 to 3,300 feet down, the anglerfish isn't the only creature you're lucky you'll probably never meet.

12:57Many of the locals look like they come straight out of science fiction or horror movies, but that's because they had to adapt to this dark, deep world.

13:05I did my best to get you prepared for the creatures you're going to meet, starting with the common fangtooth.

13:15They spend most of their lives deep down, but at night, they move toward the surface to snack.

13:20These guys are more active than most other deep-sea dwellers.

13:24They don't wait for food to come their way, but actually follow it, and then get it with their long, hungry teeth.

13:31They don't have a built-in lightbulb like the anglerfish, so they've developed a great sense of smell and use as much sunlight as they can get there in the depth to get around.

13:42Sometimes, even the shadow of a passing-by prospective prey is enough for them to switch to action mode.

13:49And though they don't look too charming, they're completely harmless to humans if you ever run into one of these guys.

13:55Stoplight Loose Jaw sounds like a great name for an alternative band, but it's actually another deep-sea resident with sneaky hunting habits.

14:07It has special light-producing photophores under each eye.

14:11They emit green and red light like a stoplight, hence the name of the fish.

14:16Unlike other fish, these guys hardly ever leave the twilight and midnight zones.

14:21Their lower jaw is a quarter of the total body length, and the stoplight keeps it open all the time, hoping to get some lunch.

14:29It looks like a ferocious predator, but mostly prefers zooplankton, with an occasional dessert of shrimp, krill, and fish.

14:39I'm sure you didn't expect to meet a hybrid of an eel and a bird, but here it is!

14:44The slender snipe eel has a beak, much like that of a bird with curving tits.

14:50The beak is equipped with tiny hooked teeth that the eels use to catch the antennae of delicious shrimp.

14:57And it sure is slender, stretching up to 5 feet and weighing only a few ounces.

15:03Scientists don't know all of this guy's secrets, since it's pretty tricky to study in their natural habitat.

15:09But it looks like they only produce offspring once in a lifetime, and then pass away.

15:14Blast squids like to take it easy in life, and literally go with the flow.

15:21They're filled with a solution, which is lighter than water, so they don't have to make any effort to move around the deep sea, looking for food and partners.

15:29These creatures are transparent, so they blend into any landscape, and don't even cast a shadow while moving.

15:37Talk about a great survival tactic!

15:39If danger finds it anywhere, it can transform into a lumpy ball, pushing its head and tentacles into its mantle cavity.

15:47It can also release ink into the mantle, and go from transparent to black.

15:52The same ink can protect it against hungry whales and seabirds.

15:57Another tactic they use to scare off predators is to activate their light-emitting organs around their eyes.

16:05Hmm, I'm getting hungry.

16:07Maybe I can snack on this sea cucumber.

16:10Ouch! It's moving!

16:12So, I guess it doesn't belong in a salad after all.

16:15These soft-bodied fellows live in all parts of the ocean, from shallow waters to the deep underwater world.

16:22Most of them slowly move around with their tiny feet, but some crawl around by flexing their bodies.

16:28Sea cucumbers can shed their internal organs when there's a predator approaching.

16:32Those sticky organs distract the intruder, and the happy cucumber moves on, and just grows the organs back.

16:41What's that glistening in the distance?

16:44Looks like someone dropped gems in the water.

16:46That's a sea sapphire, also known as the most beautiful animal you've ever seen.

16:52Some males of this type of coca-pod can change color from deep blue to purple, red, or gold.

16:59One second later, it's gone.

17:01And it's back, shimmering bright.

17:04The secret to this magic is that their bodies are transparent and reflect light differently at certain angles.

17:10It looks like it's their way of communicating between each other and attracting mates.

17:15Female sea sapphires don't have the same superpower, but their eyes are bigger compared to males, probably to spot them from a distance.

17:24Males roam wild and free, and their ladies stay in the crystal palaces of strange barrel-shaped jellies called salves.

17:32That's it for today.

17:34So hey, if you pacified your curiosity, then give the video a like and share it with your friends.

17:39Or if you want more, just click on these videos and stay on the bright side.

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