The Coelacanth, a dive into our origins

"A unique human adventure and a media-worthy scientific project"

2013-11-02

7.9

fr 91m

Documentary

Gombessa Expedition 1 To dive for the Coelacanth is to go back in time. In 1938, when it was known only as a fossil, a Coelacanth was discovered in South Africa in a fisherman's net. This species bears witness to an evolutionary bifurcation 380 million years ago, and bears the marks of a great event: the day the fish left the ocean for the open air. Does it hold the secret to the transition to walking on land? In 2010, a marine biologist and outstanding diver, Laurent Ballesta, took the first photographs of the Coelacanth in its ecosystem. In April 2013, divers and researchers set down their equipment at the Sodwana base camp in South Africa, in the club founded by Peter Timm (who died in 2014). Six weeks of extreme diving at depths of over 120 meters, in an attempt to film the Coelacanth with a double-headed camera, collect its DNA and tag a subject with a satellite-linked beacon...

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Director

Gil Kébaïli

Writer

Gil Kébaïli

Executive Producer

Jacques Hinstin

Thanks

Alexios Kitsopoulos

Scientific Consultant

Gaël Clément

Scientific Consultant

Rose Thornycroft

fish ocean scientific study south africa prehistoric creature scuba diving underwater photography fossil fish creature underwater world scientific research gombessa cœlacanthe scientific exploration