Mike Bruton was born and educated in East London, where the first coelacanth was caught. He studied under JLB Smith (who identified and popularized the first coelacanth) and his wife Margaret Smith at Rhodes University. Mike Bruton has had an adventurous career as an ichthyologist and science educator in Africa and beyond. He launched a series of expeditions to study the coelacanth and has been involved in coelacanth conservation, giving talks around the world on the fish that has come to be known as 'old fourlegs'. Although he is best known for his research on the coelacanth, he has also worked extensively on the life-history strategies of freshwater fishes. He has served as Director of the JLB Smith Institute of Ichthyology (Grahamstown), worked at the Natural History Museum (London) and headed the Two Oceans Aquarium. Recent experiences saw him working as an informal science educator in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. He has also written widely and recently produced a book called The Annotated Old Fourlegs, and another on the Freshwater Fishes of the Okavango Delta & Chobe River.