Latimeria chalumnae exhibit a deep royal blue color with spots used as a camouflage tactic for hunting prey.

[16] Some of their known prey species are fish that include: Amioides polyacanthus, Beryx splendens, Lucigadus ori and Brotula multibarbata.

[16] Some individuals have been seen performing "headstands" as feeding behavior, allowing coelacanth to slurp prey from crevices within lava caves.

[17] This behavior is made possible due to the coelacanth's ability to move both its upper and lower jaw, which is a unique trait in extant vertebrates that have bone skeletons.

[17] L. chalumnae is widely but very sparsely distributed around the rim of the western Indian Ocean, from South Africa northward along the East African coast, especially the Tanga Region of Tanzania to Kenya, the Comoros, and Madagascar, seemingly occurring in small colonies.

[18] In 1998, the total population of the West Indian Ocean coelacanth was estimated to have been 500 or fewer, a number that would threaten the survival of the species.

[2] In accordance with the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species treaty, the coelacanth was added to Appendix I (threatened with extinction) in 1989.

On December 22, 1938, Hendrik Goosen, the captain of the trawler Nerine, returned to the harbour at East London, South Africa, after a trawl between the Chalumna and Ncera Rivers.

As he frequently did, he telephoned his friend, Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer, curator at East London Museum, to see if she wanted to look over the contents of the catch for anything interesting, and told her of the strange fish he had set aside for her.

Failing to find a description of the creature in any of her books, Courtenay-Latimer attempted to contact her friend, Professor J. L. B. Smith, but he was away for Christmas.

The West Indian Ocean coelacanth was later found to be known to fishermen of the Grande Comore and Anjouan Islands, which it inhabits the slopes of, at depths between 150 and 700 meters (500 and 2,300 ft).