According to a report from Mongabay, a US-based non-profit conservation and environmental science news platform, a group of South African shark hunters recently found the rare coelacanth species (Latimeria chalumnae) in the West Indian Ocean off the coast of Madagascar.

The coelacanth species is also known as the “four-legged fossil fish” and dates back to 420 million years ago. The species lives in undersea canyons at depths between 100 and 500 meters and weighs up to 90 kilograms, per Mongabay’s report.

In recent history, the first rediscovery of the coelacanth was made back in 1938 by a group of Marine fishers who set gill-nets off the southwest coast of Madagascar.

At the time, scientists were shocked by the discovery of the species. Since then, there have been more reports of the coelacanth being caught by fishers off the coastlines of South Africa, Tanzania, and the Comoros Islands, while a different coelacanth species has turned up in Indonesian waters, Mongabay’s report states. The species is currently listed as critically endangered.

According to a new study published in the SA Journal of Science, as of May 2020, there have been at least 334 reports of coelacanth captures.”