Living Fossils
"Living fossils" are plants or animals that closely resemble species known from fossils. Many of those listed below were considered extinct and only known through fossil evidence, but were later discovered to still be alive.
It is presumed by evolutionists that fossils are much older than is correct due to a failure of the scientific community to recognize the occurrence of the Biblical global deluge. Based on an incorrect naturalistic assumption, the stratified layers are believe to have accumulated gradually, and are separated by millions of years.
Animals, such as the dinosaurs, are believed to have gone extinct 65 million years before humans lived on earth. However, according to the Bible and its chronology, all plants and animals were created at the same point in time only a few thousand years ago. Most naturalists find this thought laughable and yet many plants and animals are alive today having changed very little from their relatives that reportedly lived millions of years ago. In fact, most living fossils are almost identical to their fossilized ancestors.
Living Fossils - Organisms Unchanged After Millions of Years?
- Alligators and Crocodiles - The crocodile family is thought to have lived 230 million years ago and remains virtually unchanged since that time.
-
Army
Ants - date back 100 million years to the time of the dinosaur- Army ants defy evolution Cornell News 5/5/03 "army ants in essence have not changed a bit."
- Cockroaches - dates back 350
million years
- Mega cockroach News in Science - 08-11-2001
-
Coelacanth - Dates back 400 million years. The Coelacanth fossil pictured
at right pre-dates the dinosaurs by millions of years, and was once
thought to have gone extinct with them 65 million years ago until it was
discovered alive and well in 1938.
- Secular References
- New 'living fossil' identified BBC News Sci-Tech 3/25/99
- DINOFISH.com - coelacanth: The Fish Out of Time
- 'Living fossils' discovered off South Africa coast - December 1, 2000 CNN.com
- Sulawesi Coelacanth - The Discovery
- Creationist References
- Living fossils like the Coelacanth by Don Lindsay
- Crinoid or Sea Lilly have
been found in sedminents dating back 150 million years and yet the modern
living variety is virtually identical.
- Living fossils by Joachim Scheven. Creation 17(3):52 June 1995
- Undersea mountains yield living 'fossils' - June 26, 2000 CNN.com
-
Cycads
date back 240 million years ago- Cycads Living Fossils
- The Cycads Fossils of the Past Palm and Cycad Society of Florida
- Dragonfly dates back 230
million years, but is unchanged in almost every detail
- Emperor Dragonfly
- The Energizer Bunnies of Evolution - Science Musings 1993-7-26
-
Ginkgo
tree belongs to the family Ginkgoaceae which dates back to 270 million
years. They were thought to be extinct until they were discovered in 1691
in the Japan.
- Horseshoe Crab - Believed to
have lived 300 million years ago, but remain almost identical today.
- Horseshoe Crabs - A Living Fossil by Maryland Dept of Natural Resources
-
Nautilus
- believed to have lived 500 million years ago, but remains almost
completely unchanged- Ammonite Fossils & Ammonites Evolution by Discovering Fossils
- Chambered Nautilus
- The Chambered Nautilus the John Templeton Foundation
- Laotian rock rat -
New species from an ancient group of rodents thought to
have died out 11 million years ago
- New Pictures of 'Living Fossil' BBC News. 6 April 2006
- Neopilina molluscs -
Discovered living in the early 1950s these mollusks share a close
relationship with fossils that existed about 400 to 500 million years ago.
- Neopilina A Living Fossil by Clausen, C. D. Origins 3(1):56-59 (1976).
- Salamanders
- Salamander Origins Pegged To Asia National Geographic News 3/28/2001. A recent fossil find in China was dated to 150 mya, and is virtually unchanged from what we find living today in the neighborhood swamp.
- Sturgeon is claimed to be 250
million years old, and living since the time of the dinosaurs.
- Seven-foot living 'dinosaur' lurks in Oregon Eurek Alert 12/19/02
-
Tuatara is a lizard pictured at right
which is thought to have been around longer than any other living reptile,
and unchanged in over 200 million years.
- Velvet Worm dates back 500
million years
- Velvetworm a Living Fossil USDA ARS
-
Wollemi
Pine - "Dinosaur Tree" - Not discovered living until 1994, this
genus of trees dates back to about 150 million years ago and coexisted
with the dinosaurs.
- Jurassic pot plants on sale soon - BBC NEWS Science-Nature 9/25/2003
Living Fossil Quotes
-
Niles Eldredge, Curator, American Museum Of Natural History, under the
heading "Living Fossils", in his book, FOSSILS, 1991.
- "...there seems to have been almost no change in any part we can compare between the living organism and its fossilized progenitors of the remote geological past. Living fossils embody the theme of evolutionary stability to an extreme degree. ....We have not completely solved the riddle of living to an extreme degree. ....We have not completely solved the riddle of living fossils. " p.101, 108
- "...were thought to have been extinct by the end of the Middle Devonian [385 MYA]. Modern Neopilina species, however, were dredged from the deep oceans in the 1950's..." p.101
- P. Arduini and G. Teruzzi cite Neopilina
as an example, PREHISTORIC ATLAS, 1982.
- "There are also numerous organisms, in the present day fauna and flora, which can be regarded as living fossils; one of the best known among them is Neopilina, the only living representative of a class of mollusks...thought to have been extinct for 350 million years before 1957, when Neopilina was caught off the coast of Costa Rica." , p.78
- "The Gingko biloba is the sole surviving species of a very old group of gymnosperms which died out 100 million years ago." PREHISTORIC ATLAS, 1982, p.78
- Keith S. Thomson, Ex.
Officer, Academy of Natural Sciences. LIVING FOSSIL, 1991
- "Off the coast of southern Africa, in the winter of 1938, a fishing boat called The Nerine dragged from the Indian Ocean near the Chalumna River a fish thought to be extinct for 70 million years. The fish was a coelacanth, an animal that thrived concurrently with dinosaurs..." From bookcover.
- "The first members of this group appeared some 424 million years ago in the Silurian and look quite like the modern forms. The last fossils became extinct about 50 million years ago." p.72
- "This species was widespread and reasonably common in the Pliocene of North America... The tree was thought to be extinct worldwide until living specimens were found in central China in 1945." p.72
- Sue Rigby, British Geological Survey, Nature Vol.363, p.209, 3/18/93
- "All paleontologist dream of finding a 'living fossil.' Noel Dilly, it seems has done so... As graptolites are arguably the most important zone fossils of the Lower Palaeozoic (570-360 million years before the present), this is far from an esoteric issue."
Creationist Perspectives
-
Examples of Living Fossils by
Kevin Miller - Living Fossil Trilobites?
- Living Fossils
- Living Fossils
- Living Fossils by Evidences of Creation.com
- Living Fossils by Ian Taylor
- Living fossils by Dr Luke Randall (C. Biol., M.I. Biol. M.Sc., Ph.D)
-
‘Living fossils’ enigma by David Catchpoole Creation Ex Nihilo
22(2):56
March–May 2000 - Living Fossils - How Significant Are They? CRS Newsletter 1998
- Living fossils like the Coelacanth by Don Lindsay
- Living Fossils - Spot the difference
- Magic Disappearing Fish! Quantum History
- Missing Links, Living Fossils by Brad Hurrub
- Scaphognathus crassirostris - The Rhamphorhynchoid Pterosaur A "Living Fossil" Until the 17th Century. Presents evidence that pterosaurs may have flown the skies a couple thousand years ago
- Spot the difference--fascinating living fossils Creation 19(3):52 June–August 1997
- The Profusion of Living Fossils by Henry Morris BTG No. 143a November 2000
Living
Fossil News
- "Living fossil" discovered in SW China Experts recently discovered around 1200 Chinese Hynobiidaes in Guiding county Southwest of China's Guizhou province. These are a type of amphibian species around 300 million years old that once used to live in the dinosaur period. People's Daily Online. July 21, 2006
- Oldest hummingbird fossils found - BBC NEWS Science-Nature 5/6/04
- Jurassic pot plants on sale soon - BBC NEWS Science-Nature 9/25/2003
- Ginkgo is living fossil Ancient plants mirror modern trees. Nature June 2003
- Army ants defy evolution Cornell News 5/5/03
- Seven-foot living 'dinosaur' lurks in Oregon Eurek Alert 12/19/02
- Giant bird spotted in Alaska 10/16/02
- Mega cockroach News in Science - 08-11-2001
- Salamander Origins Pegged To Asia National Geographic News 3/28/2001. A recent fossil find in China was dated to 150 mya, and is virtually unchanged from what we find living today in the neighborhood swamp.
- 'Living fossils' discovered off South Africa coast - December 1, 2000 CNN.com
- George Mason University Professor Studies Living Fossils Discovered in Bahamas 7/2000
- Undersea mountains yield living 'fossils' - June 26, 2000 CNN.com
- New 'living fossil' identified BBC News Sci-Tech 3/25/99
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