And then, on December 23, 1938, the first living specimen was found off the east coast of South Africa. Museum curator Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer discovered the fish among the catch of a local angler. A Rhodes University ichthyologist, J.L.B. Smith, confirmed the fish's importance with a famous cable: "MOST IMPORTANT PRESERVE SKELETON AND GILLS = FISH DESCRIBED"
I remember reading about this in childhood, in the same kind of natural history book that Richard (Yellow Kid) mentioned earlier. Like him, I read those books until they fell apart.
There is a fascinating recent documentary about the discovery.
The fish rotted before Smith could properly examine it. Smith was to certain it would prove the theory that the fish walked on its fins on the ocean bottom.
Unfortunately for Smith, when live specimens were later observed in the wild, this was shown not to be the case.