Abstract
AMONG extant forms of primitive fishes which separated early from the phyletic stock of living vertebrates, the coelacanth, Latimeria chalumnae, holds a central position. Although 68 coelacanths have been caught since 1938 very little is known about their physiology and biochemistry. The recent French-British-American expedition to the Comoros captured two Latimeria from which we received refrigerated samples of whole blood and packed red cells. Here we describe the respiratory properties of the whole blood and purified haemoglobin and compare these with those of other fishes and tetrapod vertebrates; we also discuss some novel functional properties of Latimeria haemoglobin.
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WOOD, S., JOHANSEN, K. & WEBER, R. Haemoglobin of the Coelacanth. Nature 239, 283–285 (1972). https://doi.org/10.1038/239283a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/239283a0
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