Zone du Coelacanthe
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Zone du Coelacanthe
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| location | Grande comore ; Comoros | |
| surface | 75.72 km² | |
| Geographical location | 11 ° 52 ' S , 43 ° 23' E | |
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The Zone du Coelacanthe is a marine reserve in the island state of the Comoros . It includes the southern tip of the island of Grande Comore (Ngazidja) and serves in particular to protect the rare coelacanth (Coelacanthe / Latimeria).
biodiversity
Latimeria
On December 22, 1938, Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer , director of the Natural History and Natural History Museum in East London , South Africa , discovered a steel-blue fish, 1.50 meters long and 52 kilograms, in a large fish catch. The animal had been caught by a fish steamer under the command of Hendrik Goosen in the waters of the Indian Ocean off the South African coast near the mouth of the Chalumna . The specimen turned out to be a coelacanth. Smith named the Comoros coelacanth after its discoverer and the Chalumna River as Latimeria chalumnae .
It was not until 14 years later, in 1952, that a second coelacanth was caught in the area between the Comoros Islands and Madagascar , 3000 km from the first site of discovery. Here the fish was known to the locals under the name Kombessa and was eaten as a less popular fish. Its rough scales were used as a substitute for sandpaper . More specimens could then be caught, once even a live one.
It was not until 1987 that a German research group at the Max Planck Institute for Behavioral Physiology , headed by Hans Fricke, first succeeded in observing the coelacanth in its natural habitat off the Comoros. The diving boat pilot Jürgen Schauer and the Munich biology student Olaf Reinicke discovered the first coelacanth in its natural habitat on January 17, 1987 from the submersible Geo at a depth of 198 meters. It was at that time that the first photos and film recordings of living coelaceans were made. The pictures went around the world at that time. From 1989 onwards, with the support of the Frankfurt Zoological Society, a long-term research project on the coelacanth was carried out. The newly built submersible Jago was used for the first time in this and other projects . The boat reaches a depth of 400 meters and so almost the entire habitat of these rare animals could be examined. In addition, rare arm pods were discovered during these diving trips .
Whales
In addition to the living fossils , twelve species of whales are also common in the area. In addition to the dolphins ( spinner dolphin - Stenella longirostris; Bottlenose Dolphin - Tursiops truncatus; Slim dolphin - Stenella attenuata) are also humpback whales (Megaptera novaengliae), pygmy killer whale (Feresa attenuata), various beaked whales and (Mesoplodon sp.) Killer whales (Orcinus orca), Southern Right Whale (Eubalaena australis), as well as Bryde's whales (Balaenoptera edeni) in these waters.
Web links
- Zone du Coelacanthe. km.chm-cbd.net: Center d'échange d'Informations sur la Biodiversité des Comores.
- comorosparks.com.
Individual evidence
- ^ Zone du Coelacanthe. km.chm-cbd.net