Two living species of coelacanths?

During the period of September 1997 through July 1998, two coelacanth fishe s were captured off Manado Tua Island, Sulawesi, Indonesia, These specimens were taught almost 10,000 km from the only other known population of livin g coelacanths, Latimeria chalumnae, near the Comores. The Indonesian fish w as described recently as a new species, Latimeria menadoensis, based on mor phological differentiation and DNA sequence divergence in fragments of the cytochrome b and 12S rRNA genes. We have obtained the sequence of 4,823 bp of mitochondrial DNA from the same specimen, including the entire genes for cytochrome b, 12S rRNA, 16S rRNA, four tRNAs, and the control region. The sequence is 4.1% different from the published sequence of an animal capture d from the Comores, indicating substantial divergence between the Indonesia n and Comorean populations. Nine morphological and meristic differences are purported to distinguish L. menadoensis and L. chalumnae, based on compari son of a single specimen of L. menadoensis to a description of five individ uals of L. chalumnae from the Comores. A survey of the literature provided data on 4 of the characters used to distinguish L menadoensis from L. chalu mnae from an additional 16 African coelacanths; for all 4 characters, the I ndonesian sample was within the range of Variation reported for the African specimens. Nonetheless, L. chalumnae and L. menadoensis appear to be separ ate species based on divergence of mitochondrial DNA.