“Living fossil” refers to a species that is geologically long-lived and at least outwardly little changed through its history. Horseshoe crabs, sharks, and ginkos are examples of living fossils.
One of the more interesting cases of living fossils is the coelocanth, a fish with lobe-like fins that was thought to be extinct, known only from fossils from the Devonian Period, until 1938 when a dead coelocanth turned up in a fisherman’s net off the coast of South Africa. Since then there have been several live coelocanth sightings, but studying them is difficult because of their deep-water habit.
New technology helps: a robotic submersible filmed the first ever observed living baby coelocanth off Indonesia (photo)
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