Robin Stobbs, a coelacanth researcher in South Africa, has informed me that an individual of the Indonesian coelacanth was filmed at the depth of 170 m, 17, at 8:30 am on May 30, 2006, off shore Buol, about 350 km west from Manado, Sulawesi Island, with a ROV operated by the Aquamarine Fukushima Survey team. This town is only a few miles (east) from where the Jago team saw two coelacanths in a cave near ToliToli. Word now comes that two other coelacanths were seen on May 31, 2006, at Buol.

The African species (the beautiful blue ones) was re-discovered in 1938, and for decades people thought that's all there was. In the 1990s, they were finally filmed live.

But then in 1998, to the surprise of zoologists and ichthyologists worldwide, 6000 miles away, a whole new and different species (they are the beautiful brownish variety) of coelacanth were discovered off Indonesia. This videotaping of this fish is news because it is the "first video of a coelacanth in its Indonesian habitat since a German team videotaped one in 1999," as per Jiji, Chunichi Shimbun. From the one image seen (above), it does appeat to be remarkable footage.



Posted by: Kelly    Source