Frances and I were asked if we would set up a living fossils
table for the HMNS’s annual Dino Days celebration that took
place here last week. Not having had any history or paleontology
classes I was a little clueless as to which of our living
animals would fit into the category of living fossils, other
than our alligator. We did some research and what we read lead
us in several directions for what it means to be a living
fossil. Some animals, like the echidna and platypus, are
nicknamed living fossils because they exhibit “primitive”
characteristics – like oviparity, or egg-laying, in mammals. The
overall consensus is that a living fossil is an organism that
originally lived during the time of the dinosaurs (or even
predates them), has remained unchanged morphologically and
appears the same as a species otherwise only known from the
fossil record, has no close living relatives and has survived
major extinction events. There are several examples that fit
this description: the crocodilians, horseshoe crabs, tu