À la poursuite du cœlacanthe
Sophie Bontemps
1994 - 52 min - Vidéo - Couleur - France

It is blue, steel-blue. It is the only living fish whose species has not evolved for the last 350 million years. It is called a cœlacanth. People believed it had disappeared 70 million years ago. They thought it had been overcome by the same cataclysm which destroyed the dinosaurs.
Nothing remained of the cœlacanth except fossils studied by paleontologists at the beginning of the century. In fact the cœlacanth belongs to the group of fish who conquered solid ground and who are the origin of all vertebrate creatures... including man.
The coelacanth is one of our most distant ancestors. From 1952 to the present day we can follow the surprising story of the cœlacanth and the passions it aroused.