Abstract
Some of the most interesting discoveries in science are unexpected. Scientists have coined the term 'serendipitous' to describe such events. The identification of a living coelacanth fish in December of 1938 certainly was such a surprise. Professor J. L. B. Smith of Rhodes University in South Africa, was so astonished he felt as though a bomb had burst in his brain! These fishes, after all, were known only from the fossil record and were thought to have been extinct for close to 70 million years.