The Chalumna River ( xh, Tyolomnqa) is a river in the
Eastern Cape,
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...
. It is approximately 78 km long, forming at the confluence of two small rivers, the
Qugwala in the West and the
Mtyolo in the East. It empties into the
Indian Ocean
The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by th ...
through an estuary near
Kayser's Beach.
Its catchment area of 441 km makes it one of the smallest river basins on South Africa's eastern coast. Its tributaries are Nyatyora, Nxwashu, Quru and Mpintso on the left and Rode, Twecu and Tsaba on the right.
Its mouth is located about 45 km south west of the
Buffalo Estuary at
East London. The
African longfin eel
The African longfin eel (''Anguilla mossambica''), also known simply as the longfin eel, is an eel in the family Anguillidae. ''(Anguilla mossambica)'' is common in its waters.
History
It was near the mouth of this river in 1938 that Captain Hendrik Goosen trawled a catch of fish, one of which
Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer
Marjorie Eileen Doris Courtenay-Latimer (24 February 190717 May 2004) was a South African museum official, who in 1938, brought to the attention of the world the existence of the coelacanth, a fish thought to have been extinct for 65 million y ...
preserved. This fish was later identified as a
coelacanth
The coelacanths ( ) are fish belonging to the order Actinistia that includes two extant species in the genus ''Latimeria'': the West Indian Ocean coelacanth (''Latimeria chalumnae''), primarily found near the Comoro Islands off the east coast ...
, a species which was previously thought to be long extinct and was at that point in time only known from the
fossil record
A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...
. After the discovery, the name of the Chalumna River became part of the scientific name of the species, ''Latimeria chalumnae''.
Historically the Chalumna River formed the northern border of the former
Ciskei shoreline until 27 April 1994 when all the
Apartheid
Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...
era political regions were reincorporated into South Africa.
See also
*
List of rivers of South Africa
This is a list of rivers in South Africa.
It is quite common to find the Afrikaans word ''-rivier'' as part of the name. Another common suffix is "''-kamma''", from the Khoisan term for "river"
Meiring, Barbara"South African Toponymic Guideline ...
*
List of estuaries of South Africa
This is a list of estuaries in South Africa. The list is in order from East (border with Mozambique) to the West (border with Namibia).
The South African coastline stretches for some 3000 km from Kosi Bay near the Mozambique border in the ...
References
Rivers of the Eastern Cape
Internal borders of South Africa
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