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Elvis taxa, and a good summary of taxonomy

By evolvingthoughts on February 2, 2007.

Canadian blogger, columnist and science fiction writer Ed Willett has a nice piece on some taxonomic jokes that have a point, entitled Lazarus, Elvis, zombies and Jimmy Hoffa. It's also a column in the Regina Leader-Post, which speaks well of Canadian media.

Willett discusses "Lazarus taxa", which are taxonomic groups that are found , either today or as fossils, long after the first instances become unrecorded in the fossil record. The star example of this is the Coelocanth. He gives a good short introduction to Linnaean systematics.

He mentions also Elvis taxa, which are taxa that look like other taxa that are extinct. But he fails completely to mention my own coinage - Jesus taxa, which are taxa that once actually becoming extinct, are resurrected by re-evolving. Of course, Jesus taxa are not real...

Tags
evolution
Philosophy of Science
Species and systematics

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