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"It's as close to the Garden of Eden as you're going to find on Earth," said Bruce Beehler, co-leader of the group.
The team recorded new butterflies, frogs, and a series of remarkable plants that included five new palms and a giant rhododendron flower.
The survey also found a honeyeater bird that was previously unknown to science.
One of my favorite "living fossils" is the Okapi.
The okapi was once thought to have been extinct until they were found still living. These animals were once used as evidence that the horse had evolved.
The Coelacanth
"The original discovery of the Coelacanth in 1938 is still considered to be the zoological find of the century. This 'living fossil' comes from a lineage of fishes that was thought to have been extinct since the time of the dinosaurs.
Coelacanths are known from the fossil record dating back over 360 million years, with a peak in abundance about 240 million years ago. Before 1938 they were believed to have become extinct approximately 80 million years ago, after mysteriously disappearing from the fossil record. How could the Coelacanth disappear for over 80 million years and then turn up alive and well in the twentieth century? Australian Museum Online
The Coelacanth (see-lah-kanth) is a fish caught in South Africa in 1939 off the coast of Madagascar. These fish were thought to have been extinct for 70 million years. ( they think dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago !)
In the 70 million years that it is said to have been extinct, it has not changed or evolved at all !
The coelacanth was what they call an "index fossil". This means that whenever they found fossils of other animals in the same layer as the coelacanth, they "automatically knew" that it too was 70 million years old.
- In Wollemi National Park (in the Blue Mountains)the New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Services has found a pine tree once thought to be extinct. They are close relations to plants only found in the so called "Jurassic and Cretaceous" periods. (65-200 million yrs ago). There are very few of these trees left in an isolated area. Field Officer David Noble found them in 1994.