Hi Rob. Read your post. Thanks for a clear and rational one. Seems to be a trend here lately. I can only applaud it. I do believe, and I might be wrong, that there were (are) fossils of the coelacanth, which is why it was thought to be extinct and thus the surprise upon discovery of a living specimen. Without such fossils, it would just have been identified as a now living new species. But it was not. Declared extinct because of no known current specimans (at that time) and with the imprint of one in rock believed to be at least tens of millions of years old, it truly was a startling (and humerous) to me that science, and we ourselves, need to keep a dash of humility nearby when making proclamations. This is not to deride science. I love it. But we can, at any time, be wrong. I think that improves the scientific endeavor.