In “New Pacific eel is a ‘living fossil’, scientists say” (BBC News, August 16, 2011), Paul Rincon tells us,
The US-Palauan-Japanese team say the eel’s features suggest it has a long and independent evolutionary history stretching back 200m years.
“In some features it is more primitive than recent eels, and in others, even more primitive than the oldest known fossil eels, suggesting that it represents a ‘living fossil’ without a known fossil record,” write the scientists.
See also:
Living fossil birch mouse
Spider in amber is 49 million-year-old member of living genus
Life forms that never change are telling us something about evolution. Why avoid it?, David Tyler asks
Is ”living fossils“ an apt term?