Sir

Biology has endured a long history of fakes, ranging from Piltdown Man to feathered dinosaurs. Often meticulously crafted, these frauds were not always easy to detect.

Fortunately, technology has provided an arsenal of forensic tools that help reveal such fakery. But now digital imagery and powerful, simple-to-use photo-editing software present a new opportunity for scientific forgery. In the hands of a skilled user, this software can be used to produce almost imperceptibly altered fake photographs1.

Fortunately, the Séret, Pouyaud and Serre image2 (purporting to show a coelacanth captured in the Bay of Pangandaran off southern Java in 1995) does not fall into this category. It is clearly an altered copy of a photograph of a live coelacanth taken by M.V.E. on 30 July 1998 off Manado Tua and printed in Nature soon afterwards3.

While we would not be surprised if coelacanths turned up elsewhere in Indonesian waters, Pangandaran does not seem to be a likely location. Unlike the steep volcanic slopes of Manado Tua and the Comoro Islands, where populations of coelacanths are known, Pangandaran is a shallow, muddy bay.

Interviews with local Pangandaran fishermen and both the current and the 1995 chief officers of the Pangandaran Fisheries Department, by M.V.E. and scientists from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences, revealed no evidence of past coelacanth catches and no familiarity with the fish. Neither were the fishermen or fish vendors familiar with two common ‘indicator species’ of potential coelacanth habitat: deep-water snappers (Etelis spp.) or the oilfish (Ruvettus pretiosus).

This is not surprising, as the fisheries in the Pangandaran area consist primarily of shallow, level-bottom trawlers and open-water pelagic purse seines and longlines, with no evidence of the deep-water fishing gear that typically results in coelacanth bycatches.

Much has been made of the nationalistic animosity that has tainted the saga of the coelacanth. In our opinion, nationalism plays no role in good science, and is irrelevant in chance discoveries such as that of the Indonesian coelacanth. As scientists it is our responsibility to study and conserve. The Indonesians and Comorans are rightfully proud of efforts in their two countries to preserve these rare and very special fish. What pride can we in the western scientific community take in this affair?