Sketch of first modern Coelacanth, 1938

In 1938, Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer, curator at the museum in East London, Natal Province, South Africa, recognized an unusual specimen brought to her by local fishermen as a type of fish thought to be extinct for millions of years. She sent the sketch above to a teacher at a nearby university, J. L. B. Smith, who subsequently identified it as a Coelacanth. Its scientific name, Latimeria, recognizes the discoverer. (http://www.goosen.org/sa/discoa.html)