CURATOR AND CRUSADER, the life and work of Majorie Countenay-Latimer

292pp., b/w & colour illus., map, paperback, (Hermanus), 2019

Majorie Courtenay-Latimer (1907-2004) was the first bird-ringer in South Africa and researched flowering plants, birds, fossils and Xhosa customs. She worked at the East London Museum from 1931 until her retirement. In 1938 she received a call from a fisherman that an unusual species of fish had been caught in the Chalumna River and fetched it for the museum. JLB Smith later identified it as a coelacanth and named it Latimeria chalumnae in her honor.

Ichthyologist Mike Bruton is the author of The Annotated Old Fourlegs and The Fishy Smiths, a biography of JLB and Margaret Smith. He served as Director of the JLB Smith Institute of Ischtyology and as Education Director of the Two Oceans Aquarium.