At first, I found it strange that an Oddworld character could have a first name and a surname, specially Gabittis, but I thought Latamire Munch was a cool name to a Gabbit creature. Until today, I've never asked myself what's the meaning of Munch's name. Because of this topic, I made a little research at
www.dictionary.com and I found
really interesting informations.
I started with the word
latamire, and after some related words, I found this:
family Latimeridae: extinct except for the coelacanth.
genus Latimeria: type genus of the Latimeridae: coelacanth.
And most interesting,
Latimeria chalumnae: fish thought to have been extinct since the Cretaceous Period
but found in 1938 off the coast of Africa.
coe·la·canth (sl-knth): Any of various mostly extinct fishes of the order Coelacanthiformes, known
only in fossil form until a single living species, Latimeria chalumnae
of African marine waters, was identified in 1938.
Based on these informations, we can guess that the second Oddworld Quintology hero's name was inspired by a real almost extinct family fish, expect for one single species, named Latimeria chalumnae, commonly know as coelacanth.
Continuing with my little research, I found these sites:
Coelacanth: fish out of time
This part is particularly interesting:
The Coelacanth was rediscovered in 1938 in the warm, coastal waters of the Indian Ocean.[...]Fourteen years went by before anybody saw the Coelacanth again. This time, a visiting fisherman pulled it in off the coast of Madagascar. The local fishermen there are very familiar with the Coelacanth. They told scientists that they catch it in their nets all the time.
What is a coelacanth?
The coelacanth
Why Latimeria?
Smith named the fish Latimeria chalumnae in honor of Miss Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer (the curator at the East London Museum, South Africa) who had spotted it and taken the time to preserve it.
This is the most complete site about the
fish out of time that i found:
dinofish.com-COELACANTH: The Fish Out of Time
the coelacanth: his mouth resembles Munch's mouth a lot!
Adult female:
fetal "pup":
Now it is clear to me that OWI used the coelacanth as a reference to Munch's story. Go take a look at the links above and tell me what you think.
[ December 02, 2001: Message edited by: Lampion ]
latamire munch name
