Student Jack Norton finds 150-year-old fossil, reveals coelacanth link

Image: ResearchGate/Jack Norton A fossil that had sat inside London’s Natural History Museum since the 19th century appeared to have little left to reveal. Then palaeontology student Jack L. Norton took a closer look. While studying for his Master’s degree at the University of Portsmouth, Norton and his former supervisor, Dr Samuel Cooper, re-examined the 150-year-old specimen with modern imaging technology. What they uncovered was a previously unrecognised species of coelacanth, an ancient lineage whose living relatives are often described as “living fossils”. The fossil, from southern England’s Lower Cretaceous Gault Formation, helps fill a remarkable 50-million-year gap in the fossil record of the family Latimeriidae, which includes modern coelacanths. The discovery, announced by the University of Portsmouth on 21 April 2026, is also a striking reminder that museum collections can contain scientific discoveries waiting for new generations of researchers to recognise them.Jack L. Norton found a 150-year-old museum fossil hiding in plain sightThe fossil that changed Norton’s research story was not newly excavated from a remote location. It had already been collected and preserved ...