living fossil
living fossil A member of a living animal or plant species that is almost identical to species known from the fossil record (not the recent fossil record), i.e. they have changed very little over a long period. For example, Latimeria chalumnae (coelacanth) is close to Late Palaeozoic genera; Xiphosura species (horseshoe crabs) are close to Middle Palaeozoic genera; Tapirus pinchaque (Andean tapir) is close to a Miocene species; and Sphenodon (tuatara) has changed little since the early Mesozoic. The dawn redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroboides), a deciduous coniferous tree found growing in China in 1948, had been known previously only as fossils in America, from which it differs little; it is now widely cultivated as an ornamental. Note, however, that none of these species is identical to any fossil taxon; evolution has been slow, but not absent.
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living fossil
