Fake California Coelacanth

On April 23, 2025, the website “Animals Around the Globe” published an article by “Esther Evangeline” claiming an “extraordinary find” by researchers in a remotely operated vehicle probing the deep areas 80 miles offshore of San Diego, California. They found a coelacanth! Here is a quote from the piece:

What began as a routine survey of deep-sea biodiversity transformed into a historic moment when the ROV’s lights illuminated the distinctive lobed fins and characteristic body shape of a living coelacanth. The scientists aboard the research vessel reportedly fell into stunned silence before erupting in excitement as they recognized the significance of what they were witnessing.

The coelacanth (genus Latimeria), a lobe-finned fish in contrast to most of today’s ray-finned fish, is a survivor from an ancient lineage. The animal was assumed to be long extinct until a fortuitous event in 1938 resulted in a truly momentous zoological headline. A coelacanth was caught near the Chalumna River on the eastern side of South Africa and identified as a new species of coelacanth. The fish were subsequently found in the western Indian Ocean, around the Comoro Islands, Madagascar and as far east as Indonesia. In total, two new species of coelacanth were identified.

There was no reliable evidence, not even a strong inkling, that the fish would be found outside of this general area. Yet, this article was stating this incredible fact.

It was immediately clear that something was very wrong with the article. While the website looks legitimate, the tone of the story stinks of AI generation. There were no names and details given, no images, and only one clue to follow – the involvement of Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. More on that in a bit.

The story goes on to say that researchers collected water samples to examine environmental DNA where preliminary analysis suggested that the California specimen may be the African coelacanth or a new species. With “full genome sequencing” underway, the discovery generated great excitement in the scientific community who “responded to this discovery with a coordinated research initiative” to find out more about the California coelacanth and preserve its habitat.

However, none of this activity was actually happening.

The first thing I do with incredible stories is look for other sources. There were NO other articles except for this one about this claim. It would be outrageous for a general blog to have news of such a find. Unless someone on the research team leaked the info, which would be a huge blunder, news would not be announced in this way. We would have seen the video, a press release, and the news would have come directly from the research institutions. More than one person, including myself, reached out to Scripps and MBARI to get confirmation and Scripps replied. It was a fake story.

It’s not clear why the story existed at all but the arrows point to it being an AI creation. On the same day, April 23, this article was published in Nature Scientific Reports “First record of a living coelacanth from North Maluku, Indonesia“. In this instance, the fish was spotted by divers over two days. There was little similarity between this and the faked story, though. Here, there was clear proof that they found a coelacanth and the location was not that surprising.

Through searching “California coelacanth” the day the article appeared, I found two possible sources that may have been pulled by AI to create the fake story.

• In 2022, UC Santa Barbara researchers discovered a small variety of clam previously known only from the fossil record. The story was framed as similar to the coelacanth discovery and the headlines used the term “living fossil”. If you glanced at this story, you may have wrongly assumed they found a coelacanth instead.
• Secondly, the SciiFii project generated a California Reef coelacanth in a fantasy CG project. The SciiFii wiki describes the animal as if it really exists.

It remains unclear why the site Animals Around the Globe hosted this story. Perhaps other contributors to the site are legitimate but the content is obviously not fact checked and no longer should be considered reputable. Several days later, the story remains up on the site and the comment section does not work. This incident follows a series of article on cryptids in the past few weeks posted on the previously useful site How Stuff Works that are transparently AI generated, alleging spurious claims about existing cryptids.

These AI slop pieces are picked up in syndication and appear on other “news” sites that are delivering less and less reliable news. The fake California coelacanth story was distributed by Newsbreak and also by MSN (which is now a terrible source of news because of the lack of content standards). All this nonsense goes to show that readers must be far more diligent these days to assure the information online is solid. You can’t use one news source, you must do you own work to track down multiple legitimate sources. And, even then, there has to be some independent verification of note. Click bait is worse than ever and media companies have no standards for what they pass of as news.

For more on the coelacanth, click here.

Update: Unfortunately, more sites are reposting this fake story. I’ve since found it on The Daily Galaxy under the “Science” category. I suspect it will continue to propagate until the MBARI or Scripps makes a strong statement about it’s falsity. And, a redditor noted that Google AI already is using the Reddit post about the original story (before it was shown to be a fake) as a source saying that a new sighting has been made in California! Several instances of a baseless claim of the fish found in California in the past is also posted in several places, possibly adding to the fake facts adding to the AI aggregation. These cryptid stories have never been verified.

NOTE: I never use AI to write my posts. All spelling, grammar and factual errors are my fault.