Hit parade of “living fossils”: these 14 species have not changed in millions or even hundreds of millions of years
A living fossil is a species that has not changed significantly over millions of years and closely resembles its ancestors found in the fossil record. Charles Darwin coined the term “living fossil” in 1859 to describe living species that still looked like their ancestors millions of years ago and were often the last surviving lineage. Anatomically, these species tend to appear unchanged, although genetically, the species are constantly evolving. Plate tectonic activity has had a profound effect on the rate of evolution of coelacanths throughout their 400-million-year history.