The coelacanth (see-lo-canth) is no ordinary fish. Five feet long, with luminescent eyes and limb like fins, this bizarre creature, presumed to be extinct, was discovered in 1938 by an amateur icthyologist who recognized it from fossils dating back 400 million years. The discovery was immediately dubbed the "greatest scientific find of the century," but the excitement that ensued was even more incredible. This is the entrancing story of that most rare and precious fish -- our own great-uncle forty million times removed.

The dramatic story of the discovery of a 400 million-year-old living fossil. Just before Christmas in 1938, the young woman curator of a small South African museum spotted a strange-looking fish in a trawler's catch. It was five feet long, with steel-blue scales, luminescent eyes and remarkable limb-like fins, unlike those of any other fish she had ever seen. Determined to preserve her unusual find, she searched for days for a way to save it, but ended up with only the skin and a few bones.

A charismatic amateur ichthyologist, J. L. B. Smith saw a thumbnail of the fish and was thunderstruck. He recognised it as a coelacanth (pronounce, 'see-la-kanth'), a creature known from fossils dating back 400 million years and thought to have died out with the dinosaurs. With its extraordinary limbs, the coelacanth was believed to be the first fish to crawl from the sea and evolve into reptiles, mammals and eventually humankind. The discovery was immediately dubbed the 'greatest scientific find of the century'.

Smith devoted his life to the search for a complete specimen, a fourteen-year odyssey which culminated in a dramatic act of international piracy. As the fame of the coelacanth spread, so did rumours and obsessions. Nations fought over it, multimillion-dollar expeditions were launched and submarines hand-built to find it. In 1998 the rumours and the truth came together in a gripping climax, which brought the coelacanth back into the international limelight.

A Fish Caught in Time is the entrancing story of the most rare and precious fish in the world – our own great-uncle forty million times removed.