Not Living Fossils

[Oxytropidoceras]

++ Tadpole Shrimp Not a Living Fossil ++

Ancient Tadpole Shrimp Not a Living Fossil, Study Says

Tanya Lewis, LiveScience, April 2, 2013

http://www.livescience.com/28344-shrimp-not-living-fossil.html

Diversification in ancient tadpole shrimps challenges
the term 'living fossil' Eureka Alert, April 2, 2013

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-04/p-dia032513.php

Article at https://peerj.com/articles/62/

++ Deep-Sea Vent Life Not Living Fossils ++

Deep-Sea Vent Life Not Living Fossils
Yahoo News, April 2, 2013

http://news.yahoo.com/deep-sea-vent-life-not-living-fossils-214628242.html

Deep-sea vent animals not as isolated as they seem

by Laura Poppick, Physorh, April 1, 2013
http://phys.org/news/2013-04-deep-sea-vent-animals-isolated.html

Vrijenhoek, R.C., (2013). On the instability and evolutionary

age of deep-sea chemosynthetic communities. Deep-Sea
Research Part II: Topical Studies in Oceanography.

DOI 10.1016/j.dsr2.2012.12.004 (published online in Dec. 2012).

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0967064512001956

Yours,

Paul H.

Edited April 2, 2013 by Oxytropidoceras

[Auspex]

++ Tadpole Shrimp Not a Living Fossil ++

Ancient Tadpole Shrimp Not a Living Fossil, Study Says

Tanya Lewis, LiveScience, April 2, 2013

http://www.livescience.com/28344-shrimp-not-living-fossil.html ...

"Some 250-million-year-old fossils were assigned to the living Triops cancriformis species, but the new research suggests this species actually evolved much more recently ― less than 25 million years ago."

OK, the species is not as old as supposed, but at up to 25 MYO, I think it still qualifies as a so-called "living fossil", does it not? For even a genus to last this long is remarkable!

[Oxytropidoceras]

Another article,

The Falsity of Living Fossils. (New studies of tadpole shrimp and

other organisms show that the term “living fossil” is inaccurate

and misleading.) by Ed Yong, the Scientist, April 2, 2013

http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/34927/title/The-Falsity-of-Living-Fossils/

Yours,

Paul H.

[Bullsnake]

Still takes nothing away from the coolness factor for me, though.

But now the marketing department will have to change the box design!

[Ramo]

Box!? We just get em' out of the pond if it ever rains again!

Ramo

[Bullsnake]

Box!? We just get em' out of the pond if it ever rains again!

Ramo

Cool, Ramo!

I hear of them found in the wild, but all the years I've spent seine netting and wallowing in the pond, I've never seen them.

[Scylla]

OK, ok "living fossil" probably is not an accurate scientific term. I am sure that the metasequoia trees, woomera pines, tuataras and celocanths have all had some evolutionary improvements in the past X million years. However, there is also no such thing as luck, suction, centrifugal force, or a hundred other ideas that help us make sense of the world either. So I will go along with the coolness factor of believing in living fossils even though my inner scientist frowns in disapproval. My 2 cents.