The Chalumna River is a river in South Africa. It was near the mouth of this river in 1938 that Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer first saw a Coelacanth fish, thought to be long extinct. The Chalumna empties into the Indian Ocean. 1938 (MCMXXXVIII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar). ... Marjorie Eileen Doris Courtenay-Latimer (February 24, 1907-May 17, 2004) was the South African museum official who in 1938 brought to the attention of the world the existence of the coelacanth, a fish thought to have been extinct for seventy million years. ... Species Latimeria chalumnae Latimeria menadoensis Coelacanth (meaning hollow spine in Greek; IPA: ) is a species of fish and represents the oldest lineage of living fish known to date. ...
It has the sleepy feel of a holiday town and nestles in amongst a number of quiet seaside resorts.
Swimming, sailing, water-skiing, board-sailing, and boating are enjoyed all year round, while the river mouths, lagoons and gullies provide a paradise for fishing.
Pride of place at East London's museum is the famous prehistoric coelacanth caught in the ChalumnaRiver, previously thought to be extinct 50 million years ago.
No coelacanths were sighted during the survey, nor were large caves seen off the ChalumnaRiver, as the friable sandstone terraces of the slope in this region is not conducive to formation of caves; in several places, the roofs of overhangs were seen to have collapsed after being eroded too far.
The sighting of juvenile (1 m) and adult (1.6 to 1.8 m) coelacanths on two separate dives implies a viable population of Latimeria chalumnae in a marine protected area (St Lucia Marine Reserve), and this is good news for the conservation of this apparently endangered species.
Bruton M.N. and Stobbs R.E. The ecology and conservation of the coelacanth Latimeria chalumnae.
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