Zombie Taxa
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paleontology Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossi ...
, a zombie taxon (plural ''zombie taxa'') or the zombie effect refers to a fossil that was washed out of sediments and re-deposited in rocks and/or sediments millions of years younger. That basic mistake in the interpretation of the age of the fossil leads to its title, in that the discovered fossil was at some point mobile (or "walking") despite the original organism having been long dead. When that occurs, the fossil is described as a " reworked fossil" or ''remanié''.


See also

*
Convergent evolution Convergent evolution is the independent evolution of similar features in species of different periods or epochs in time. Convergent evolution creates analogous structures that have similar form or function but were not present in the last com ...
* Dead clade walking *
Extinction Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...
* Elvis taxon * Lazarus taxon *
Living fossil A living fossil is an extant taxon that cosmetically resembles related species known only from the fossil record. To be considered a living fossil, the fossil species must be old relative to the time of origin of the extant clade. Living fossi ...


Further reading

*Archibald, J. David. (1996). Dinosaur Extinction and the End of An Era. Columbia University Press, 672-684. , who defined the terms zombie effect and zombie taxon/taxa. * Weishampel, David B. et al. (2004). ''The Dinosauria''. University of California Press. . *Abigail Lane et al.
Estimating paleodiversities: a test of the taxic and phylogenetic methods
.


References

{{reflist Extinction Phylogenetics