Actually, I like the fact that the coelecanth was brought up. I think it nicely illustrates a mis-understanding involved when it comes to discovering species (or finding species thought extinct).
It was absolutely NOT a case of "no one had ever seen one, then somebody found one". It was a combination of factors:
1. The species was thought extinct, so there was never much effort to find them (why look for something that died out millions of years ago?).
2. It wasn't as if no one had seen them, but rather no one recognized them. The local fishermen would often have these fish in their catch, but they aren't paleontologists or icthyologists (sp?). It was just a wierd fish.
3. When the first person saw one in the market, and recognized what it might be, research started. Knowing the area where they were (the places where the fishermen fished), they were found very quickly. In fact, another species in the same order has been found in Indonesia. It was also found initially in a fisherman's catch at market.
Compare this to bigfoot:
1. Not thought extinct, but rather there's no evidence of anything like it existing (and no, gigantopithicus isn't like the descriptions of bigfoot, except superficially at best).
2. While there are claims of them being seen, the stories often contradict each other on sizes, colors, behaviors, and similar. And there has, to date, been no physical evidence to point to a large primate. No bigfoot hides found in Native American archeological sites, for example.
3. We know the supposed range, yet can find no trace of them. Additionally, the ranges proposed tend to be pretty well populated and explored.
So, with the coelecanth, there were physical samples of them all along, they just weren't recognized for what they were. Once discovered, they were quickly found in the wild. Within 50 years, a second species was found in a widely dispersed part of the world.
With bigfoot, we have no reliable physical evidence. No body or body parts. No scat, hair, blood, or anything else that points to a primate. Nothing can be found in the supposed range, a range that is also much more heavily populated than ocean. In over a hundred years of stories, not only have no additional species been found, the original still can't be located.
So bringing up coelecanth as support for bigfoot...well, to me, that'd just a declaration that the speaker has little to no understanding of the subject they're discussing. It's window dressing to make it sound more plausible to those who don't know the details. Because knowing those details only points even more stongly to the problems with bigfoot belief.
