Females do not reach sexual maturity until their late 50s, the study by French scientists said, while male coelacanths are sexually mature at 40 to 69 years old. And maybe strangest of all, researchers think pregnancy in the fish lasts about five years.
Coelacanths, which have been around for 400m years, were thought extinct until they were found alive in 1938 off South Africa. Scientists believed for a long time that coelacanths live about 20 years.
But by applying a standard technique for dating commercial fish, French scientists calculated they actually live close to a century, according to a study in the journal Current Biology released on Thursday.
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