I'm reading Time-Life's "Mysterious Creatures" book from their "Mysteries of the Unknown" series and they mention the whole coelacanth discovery thing. This is all fine and as the coelacanth is one of my favourite creatures I was glad to see it mentioned, but the next page displays a picture of what they want us to believe is a coelacanth with the caption
>A villager from Comoro Island, off the coast of Mozambique, displays a coelacanth
Along with a brief summary of the coelacanth's history. Now maybe I'm just awful at identifying fish (which is entirely possible) but to me the fish in the photo looks nothing like a coelcanth other than it being a large fish. From the photo it looks like some sort of sturgeon maybe? I'm curious as to what /an/ thinks.
>>2185409
That looks nothing like a sturgeon.
Sturgeon have inferior/sub-terminal mouths.
The fish is also lacking in barbels.
There also appear to be no bony scutes on its dorsal side.
The fish has a spiny and soft dorsal fin.
This fish however, is not a coelenterate either.
You can tell right away by looking at its teeth, it's teeth extend all the way to the maxillary.
I'll try to key it in a moment, but I think you are right.
>>2185425
To be entirely honest I just sort posted the first fish I could think of that it reminded me of. I don't know enough about fish outside of niche things. Thank you for your help though, I know this is really inconsequential considering it's an error in a book from the 80's about paranormal things but it's still fun.
>>2185409
Looks like an oilfish.
Clearly not a ceolacanth but how you came to guess a sturgeon is an even bigger mystery to me than the article.