Museum Mysteries: Smithsonian and coelacanths

Ok, I just saw a segment on the Travel Channel concerning “Museum Mysteries”, this one on a coelacanth preserved there. I found it very annoying.

There was discussion of “missing link”. There was narrator speculation on the coelacanth’s place in “the evolutionary chain”. There was no mention that the modern coelacanth is not even placed in the same genus as any extinct coelacanth.

In order to hype the specimen, accuracy of scientific content was sacrificed. I don’t think the trade-off was worth it.