Editor's Summary
16 June 2005
Coast to coast
The presumed home of African coelacanths, the 'living fossil' fish, is in the Comoros archipelago off Madagascar. Occasional sightings thousands of miles away, off South Africa, Tanzania and Kenya, raised the possibility of separate populations, even subspecies. But now a genetic study suggests that these disparate populations are all related to the Comoros fish.
Brief Communications: Genetics: Relatedness among east African coelacanths
Scattered groups of these ancient fish may all stem from a single remote population.
Manfred Schartl, Ute Hornung, Karen Hissmann, Jürgen Schauer and Hans Fricke
doi: 10.1038/435901a
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