Mike Bruton was brought up in East London, where the first coelacanth was caught, and studied under JLB Smith, who identified and popularized the iconic fish (which came to be known as ‘old fourlegs’). Mike Bruton has had an adventurous career as an ichthyologist and science educator in Africa and beyond. He has been involved in coelacanth conservation, giving talks around the world on the fish, and has written a range of books on this and other topics, most recently The Annotated Old Fourlegs – an update of JLB Smith’s bestseller about this famous fish.
