"Old Fourlegs", the West Indian Ocean Coelacanth

The Coelacanth was known to science only from fossil records until 1938, leading to its commonly being described as a "living fossil". Fossils similar to the modern coelacanth date to 400 million years ago, and were presumed to have become extinct 60 million years ago at the end of the Cretaceous period.

Although coelacanths were known to Comoro island fishermen who caught gombessa occasionally, it was studied formally for the first time by ichthyologist JLB Smith who gave it the nickname "Old Fourlegs" and the formal name Latimeria chalumnae to honour Margaret Latimer, the curator of the East London Museum who provisionally identified a caught specimen.

Until 2013, coelacanths were thought to represent the oldest ancestor of four-legged land animals (tetrapods), but DNA studies have concluded that lungfishes are more closely related.