Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Elvis Has Left The Building


In paleontology, an Elvis taxon (plural taxa) is a taxon which has been misidentified as having re-emerged in the fossil record after a period of extinction, but is not actually a descendant of the original taxon, instead having developed a similar morphology through convergent evolution. This implies the extinction of the original taxon is real, and the two taxa are polyphyletic.


Via Kottke

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