living fossil

Meaning

Noun

• Any species discovered first as a fossil and believed extinct, but which is later found living; an organism that has remained unchanged over geological periods.
• Any living species which very closely resembles fossil relatives in most anatomical details.

Origin

• The term was coined by the English biologist, geologist, and naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1882) in his work On the Origin of Species (1859): see the quotation below.