Discovery of a New Living Fossil
The Palauan Primitive Cave Eel, Protanguilla palau
In Johnson's detailed comparative analysis of the skeletal anatomy in living and fossil eels, he found that Protanguilla has a unique blend of features. On one hand, it shares characteristics of living eels, but on the other hand, it exhibits characteristics from fossil eels of the Cretaceous period. It even has some features that are primitive with respect to both living and fossil eels.
http://vertebrates.si.edu/fishes/protanguilla/protanguilla.html
Does anyone else have any other similar articles? Is there an exhaustive list that could be referred to? There seems to be a growing list of things that are of out of place, even though the theory of evolution still claims it fits the model.
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Adam J. Benton on -
This eel belongs to a new species and even a new genus. Thus it isn't a living fossil in the sense its a organism that has survived unchanged for aeons but rather it is a "new" organism which possesses several ancient traits.
Is this out of place for evolution? Not particularly - if this traits were fitter than their variants then such a stasis would've easily been preserved.
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Permalink Reply by Donald Smith on -
The evolution theory could argue stasis for any retained feature of any living thing. This could be true as far as the theory is concerned, though it makes the theory unfalsifiable in regards to any findings of living things that matches the fossil version. Though every time a living counter part to a fossil is found, it makes it unnecessary to tell the evolutionary version of history.
I'm not sure what terms like, ancient, primitive or simple traits refer to, since it is a contemporary of any other eel living today and very complex. Without the find, the fossil record is held up as proof that in the past things go from simple to complex, but the reality is that it is alive today and it flies in the face of such speculations.
I really would like to see links that catalogues unexpected features that appear through out the fossil record.
Dr Carl Warner has twos books: http://www.thegrandexperiment.com/, one of them is on living fossils.
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Permalink Reply by Adam J. Benton on
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Basically, it's an eel but some of its characteristics - such as a skull with a premaxilla - closest resemble characteristics found on ancient eels. In other words, its not a living fossil but an organism which shares some features with fossils.
Now, is the fact evolution has a solution for such stasis in of itself a problem for evolution? Not really. Firstly because it doesn't actually render it unfallsifiable - if it could be conclusively shown there was no reason for this stasis, then its a definite problem for evolution; but mostly because the world is complex and different things happen in different situations. Thus it isn't inherently a bad thing for a theory to posit different things in different situations.
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Permalink Reply by Adam J. Benton on
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Again:
"it's an eel but some of its characteristics - such as a skull with a premaxilla - closest resemble characteristics found on ancient eels. In other words, its not a living fossil but an organism which shares some features with fossils."
Now, why did this happen? Well, two possible explanations are either that this eel was created with such a mix of traits for some reason or during the course of its evolution these traits weren't changed for some reason, possibly due to genetic drift or the variants created being inferior to the original version.
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Permalink Reply by Richard K on -
The other option, and the one that we can observe and see all the time, is that certain genetics traits became predominant in certain environmental conditions...
The biggest problem with the statement about "Why" has an organism remained static over millions of years, assumes that it started out less complex and 'decided' it needed to evolve in order to remain relevant in the futre environment. Problem is, it was not 'simpler' in the fossil record and the variations are 'All' minor by comparison in the complexity and perfection of the whole organism... :)
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Permalink Reply by Adam J. Benton on
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The biggest problem with the statement about "Why" has an organism remained static over millions of years, assumes that it started out less complex and 'decided' it needed to evolve
Not necessarily. All it presumes is that there was a change from one form to another, yet some organisms' phenotype (or, as in this case, a part of their phenotype) did not make this change and retained their previous form. The complexity of either form is irrelevant as long as their is change
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Permalink Reply by Donald Smith on
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But the facts should dictate, over the speculation. Fossils are just impressions really like a photograph, with none of the original material preserved, (though some recent discoveries have brought this view into question). The living specimen should take precedent over the fossil. This eel not ancient, Its contemporary with all other eels alive today. Its unchanged and I would guess that its parents and their parents, parents where the same. This is a complex modern eel. I'm not sure sure how one decides which direction the change is going in. It would be like finding a single fossil of a man who is only 5ft tall, then concluding that all men were 5tf tall. That's the problem with a lot of arguments trying to explain the past with a few artefacts, it tends to polarise the events and extrapolate them to every other event.
You could just as easily argue that a more complex version existed first and that this body type devolved from that, losing something rather than gaining something. This also seems easier to be achieve genetically.
Adam J. Benton said:The biggest problem with the statement about "Why" has an organism remained static over millions of years, assumes that it started out less complex and 'decided' it needed to evolve
Not necessarily. All it presumes is that there was a change from one form to another, yet some organisms' phenotype (or, as in this case, a part of their phenotype) did not make this change and retained their previous form. The complexity of either form is irrelevant as long as their is change
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Permalink Reply by Adam J. Benton on
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I'm not completely certain of what you're saying there, could you please clarify?
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Permalink Reply by Richard K on
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So if it is possible that a particular animal didn't change than perhaps it is simply another specie, different from the species we are trying to say it evolved from.
That would be like finding a fossil of a 'Tiger' and claim that is was the ancestor of a modern 'Mountain Lion'. If only one specie was alive today we could only speculate, and evolutionists would tell the same story that they have about the eel. Which I'm not sure what the meaning of their story is.... :)
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Permalink Reply by Adam J. Benton on
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If we were to simplify this, it would be to say we have 3 species of eel. Type A, the fossil; type B, the modern eel and type AB, this new mix of fossil and modern attributes. Now, it is certainly possible that A, AB and B are 3 unrelated species that happen to share traits.
Genetic evidence, if one accepts that sort of thing, refutes this idea somewhat by showing AB and B are related. But, it still might be the case that whilst B and AB are related, this group is unrelated to A. The only confirmation of such a relationship is morphological data - the paper pointing to a variety of traits unique to only those 3 groups. Whether or not you accept such evidence is, like with the genetic data, down to you but if one grants its validity it does suggest that AB, B and A are all related.
Given its 2am I'm not particularly inclined to go into what that relationship might be, all I'll say is that the above leaves us with a few options. Either they are all related somehow or the genetic and morphological data is off - maybe because the methodology is poor or maybe because they were individually created to be similar enough to throw off the genetic and morphological data.
For more information, check out the original paper:
Johnson, G. David, Hitoshi Ida, Jiro Sakaue, Tetsuya Sado, Takashi Asahida, and Masaki Miya. Published online 17 August 2011. A 'living fossil' eel (Anguilliformes: Protanguillidae, fam. nov.) .... Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 1-10.
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Permalink Reply by Lou Hamby on -
This subject was "living fossils"? There are fossils of Texas Horned Lizards, Fossil skin of Gila Monster, the tuatara is still alive and well and found in the fossil record, the Horse shoe crab, the coelacanth, and many others. Science evolutionists are quick to apply a new and different name to some of these, yet if you look at the examples I gave and the Orb spider and others, it seems the some of what is assumed above in your discussions is questionable to me?
1. A tyrannosaur is always a tyrannosaur? There are many species of thrapod but only one T-Rex. They like many other walked the face of the earth and died out, they did not change. Science infers change to birds using homology and similarity in design, yet design similarity is an example of intelligent thinking and design processes, but not a new species?
2. One must ask themselves when dealing with fossil remains, how far back does this fossil go (flood), comparative to the living fossil, it is interesting they have not changed one iota? Can you provide me with a living fossil that has a fossil record that has any proof of connectivity to change? In every case they have been exactly the same? If the fossil record is a result of the flood, then the fossil if you will is like a picture of original creation or pre-flood existence?
When you make assumptions of change, it is more likely that this was an actual "version" of an original creative insect, lizard, you name it. If you look on the internet of the amber encased insects, lizards, frogs, and others. These are redily identifiable and have not changed one iota.
Here is where change takes place---mans tampering and cross-breading animals, and hybridization where two of the similar species cross distribution and are able to mate and propagate a hybrid. Perfect example would be "Goode's Horned Lizard". So does change take place--yes very seldom but it does, the basis for change that is being discussed above implies something that has no evidence or connecting link or ancestor. The fossil ancestor of a living fossil has not changed. Variability in kinds is a result of original creation, and God's diversity which he set forth on the earth.... Your thoughts?
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Permalink Reply by David Thomas Posey on -
Agreed, with an addition to when change happens: isolation of a few individuals of a species. The narrowed gene pool caused by geographic isolation (such as the Galapagos) can have much the same effect as selective breeding by a dairy farmer.
Lou Hamby said:This subject was "living fossils"? There are fossils of Texas Horned Lizards, Fossil skin of Gila Monster, the tuatara is still alive and well and found in the fossil record, the Horse shoe crab, the coelacanth, and many others. Science evolutionists are quick to apply a new and different name to some of these, yet if you look at the examples I gave and the Orb spider and others, it seems the some of what is assumed above in your discussions is questionable to me?
1. A tyrannosaur is always a tyrannosaur? There are many species of thrapod but only one T-Rex. They like many other walked the face of the earth and died out, they did not change. Science infers change to birds using homology and similarity in design, yet design similarity is an example of intelligent thinking and design processes, but not a new species?
2. One must ask themselves when dealing with fossil remains, how far back does this fossil go (flood), comparative to the living fossil, it is interesting they have not changed one iota? Can you provide me with a living fossil that has a fossil record that has any proof of connectivity to change? In every case they have been exactly the same? If the fossil record is a result of the flood, then the fossil if you will is like a picture of original creation or pre-flood existence?
When you make assumptions of change, it is more likely that this was an actual "version" of an original creative insect, lizard, you name it. If you look on the internet of the amber encased insects, lizards, frogs, and others. These are redily identifiable and have not changed one iota.
Here is where change takes place---mans tampering and cross-breading animals, and hybridization where two of the similar species cross distribution and are able to mate and propagate a hybrid. Perfect example would be "Goode's Horned Lizard". So does change take place--yes very seldom but it does, the basis for change that is being discussed above implies something that has no evidence or connecting link or ancestor. The fossil ancestor of a living fossil has not changed. Variability in kinds is a result of original creation, and God's diversity which he set forth on the earth.... Your thoughts?
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