Coelacanth

The Coelacanth is a species of fish that used to be put forward as evidence for vertebrates’ “transition from water to land” thesis. Fossil Coelacanths were once regarded as evidence of an intermediate form between fish and amphibians. Based on fossil remains of the creature, evolutionist biologists suggested it contained a primitive (and not yet fully functional) lung in its body.

On 22 December 1938, however, a most significant discovery was made in the Indian Ocean. A living member of the species Latimeria, a member of the Coelacanth species that had been portrayed as having become extinct 70 million years ago, was caught in the open sea! The discovery of a living Coelacanth definitely came as a major shock to evolutionists. The evolutionist paleontologist J. L. B. Smith said that he could not have been more astonished if he had met a dinosaur in the street.83 In the years that followed, more than 200 Coelacanths have been caught in various regions of the sea.

When the first few of these fish were examined, it was realized that the speculation concerning them had been groundless. Contrary to what had been claimed, the Coelacanth had no primitive lung or a large brain. The structure that evolutionist researchers had thought to be the fish’s a primitive lung was actually nothing more than an oil sac in its body.84 Moreover, it was also realized that the Coelacanth, which had been depicted as aamphibian-to-be preparing to emerge from the water, actually lived in deep ocean waters and hardly ever rose to above 180 meters (590 feet).85

At this news, the popularity of the Coelacanth among evolutionist publications suddenly waned. An evolutionist paleontologist by the name of Peter L. Forey made this admission in an article in Nature magazine:

 The discovery of [living specimen of] Latimeria raised hopes of gathering direct information on the transition of fish to amphibians, for there was then a long-held belief that coelacanths were close to the ancestry of tetrapods.  . . .But studies of the anatomy and physiology of Latimeria have found this theory of relationship to be wanting and the living coelacanth’s reputation as a missing link seems unjustified.86

As his admission shows, no intermediate form between fish and amphibians ever existed. The Coelacanth, the only serious intermediate form proposed by evolutionists, is nothing more than a living species of fish with nothing whatsoever to do with evolution.

83 Jean-Jacques Hublin, The Hamlyn Encyclopaedia of Prehistoric Animals, New York : The Hamlyn Publishing Group Ltd., 1984, p. 120.
84 Jacques Millot, “The CCFlacanth,” Scientific American, December 1955, No. 193, p. 39.
85 http://www.cnn.com/TECH/science/9809/23/living.fossil/index.php.
86 Peter L. Forey, “Golden jubilee for the coelacanth Latimeria chalumnae,” Nature, Vol. 336, 1988. p. 729.