Science: Living Fossil

Glimpses of a coelacanth

For years, British Cameraman Peter Scoones has had an unlikely dream. A dedicated scuba diver, he wanted to photograph a live coelacanth (pronounced seal-ah-kanlh), the ancient, almost legendary, stump-legged fish which once was believed to have died out soon after the dinosaurs. Now this paparazzo of the deep has nailed his prey. Last week Scoones released rare color photographs of one of these "living fossils," swimming contentedly for his camera in the Indian Ocean off the Comoro Islands near the Malagasy Republic.

On assignment for the BBC, Scoones started his search by dragging an underwater television camera along...

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