Referring of course to the Biblical Lazarus (who Jesus kindly brought back from the jaws of death), a Lazarus taxon is a group of animals initially thought to be extinct only to be discovered at a later date to be quite alive.
Below are a few examples of Lazarus taxa which scientists first described as fossils before finding them living and breathing in modernity. Please forgive me for the slightly overblown title, they haven’t really been raised from the dead. That would be bonkers.
Before being found alive and kicking in 1975 this weird looking hog type of thing was only known through its fossils. There are just 3,000 individual Chacoan peccaries left and they reside in Paraguay, Bolivia, and Argentina.
Probably the most famous species to have the Lazarus taxa accolade is the coelacanth. Until very recently this ancient fish was only known by its fossils and was considered to have disappeared from earth 66 million years ago.
That was until one was dragged up by a fisherman off the coast of South Africa in 1938. Thankfully, a museum worker happened to be looking through the fisherman’s haul and realised the importance of the catch.
There are just two extant species of coelacanth, and they’re considered one of the most endangered order of animal in the world. Coelacanths are thought to be a “missing link” between fish and tetrapods (amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals).
Previously known only from fossils 15 to 20 million years old, the two nightcap oak species above were recognized in 2000 and 1995, respectively.
How do you miss a tree? Well, it’s understandable in this case, there are only thought to be 100 individuals left alive and they all grow in the area surrounding a single creek in northern New South Wales, Australia.
These sneaky insects managed to evade science’s prying eyes until being glimpsed in 2006. Gracilidris was thought to have gone extinct 15-20 million years ago. But they hadn’t at all. They’d been living the life of Riley in Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina all along.
They died out 11 million years ago didn’t they? No, you couldn’t be more wrong. They’re still alive and kicking in the Khammouan region of Laos you idiot.
In a 2005 paper Paulina Jenkins and coauthors placed the rat in an entirely new family – Laonastidae – because it was so different from other rat species. But in 2006 Mary Dawson and coauthors challenged this, claiming the rat is in fact part of a family that was considered extinct – Diatomyidae. Suck on that Jenkins et al.
This lovely looking critter was first described from fossils in 1977 but was later found chilling out in Majorca in 1979 where it had probably been all along.
The cuter than cute monitor del monte is nothing to do with the man from Del Monte, he has no business with this creature and can keep his fruity fingers to himself, hogging the limelight all the time.
Thought extinct for 11 million years he decides to rock up in South America a few years back. The monitor del monte is the sole survivor of the order Microbiotheria and is more closely related to Australian marsupials than American marsupials. This nugget of information changed the way science viewed the development and spread of the odd marsupial clan.
So that’s seven examples, but why do these Lazarus taxa exist? There are a couple of ideas, firstly the fossil record, although mighty impressive, is not the entire story; if something appears to disappear it’s certainly not a 100% proof that they went away. We might just not have found their remains, or they weren’t fossilised.
Lazarus effects also seem to be more prevalent after mass extinctions. This is assumed to be because even if you have survived a massive event like this, there are likely to be less individuals than before the meteorite or volcano exploded and therefore less fossils.
However it occurs I’d like to welcome these Lazarus beasts back to the land of the living.
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