Well, if you want to get technical about it …
New research published in Molecular Biology and Evolution presents evidence showing that at least one species of coelacanth, formally known as Latimeria chalumnae, is not the living fossil it’s presumed to be, having acquired dozens of new genes in the past 23 million years—a surprising finding, and a far cry from the idea that the species has barely changed since its ancestors emerged over 300 million years ago. What’s more, the finding is further evidence that the living fossil concept is outdated and somewhat of a misnomer.
George Dvorsky, “Huge Fish, Once Believed Extinct, Isn’t the ‘Living Fossil’ Scientists Thought” at Gizmodo
For all practical purposes, the coelacanth is a “living fossil,” in the sense that it is an example of stasis. It wanders a bit genetically over millions of years but doesn’t change much over hundreds of millions of years. Could we say the same of most vertebrates?
The paper is open access.
See also: Stasis: Life goes on but evolution does not happen