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Salamanders are ‘living fossils'!
by David Catchpoole, Australia

You've heard of ‘living fossils'? These are usually announced (often with much media fanfare) when something known only from the fossil record, long presumed extinct for millions of years, is unexpectedly found living somewhere. Examples of such living fossils include the coelacanth fish, the Wollemi pine tree (see Missing? or misinterpreted?), and the ‘Gladiator' insect.1

But the latest animal to be pronounced a living fossil is one that has been familiar to generations of people for as long as anyone can remember; namely, the salamander.

So how can something long known to be living, suddenly be dubbed a ‘living fossil'?

The circumstances behind this, and the rationale for it, are described in a scientific paper in the journal Nature, by researchers who found fossils of juvenile and subadult salamanders in Upper Mongolia, China.2

The gist of the story is that these fossil specimens are from the Cryptobranchidae salamander family, which includes the modern-day Asian giant salamander (Andrias) and the North American hellbender (Cryptobranchus). Until this recent discovery, the earliest cryptobranchid salamander fossils were dated by evolutionists to around 60 million years ago, but these salamander fossils from Upper Mongolia are said to predate them ‘by a remarkable 100 million years'.3 And, with an assigned age of 161 million years, ‘the new cryptobranchid shows extraordinary morphological similarity to its living relatives', which ‘underscores the stasis within salamander anatomical evolution'.2 Stasis means ‘a period or state of inactivity or equilibrium'.4 However, major evolution should have happened in 160 million years! That's why the researchers conclude that cryptobranchid salamanders alive today ‘can be regarded as living fossils'.

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Introduction

Hellbenders are not the largest salamanders in the world, but they're pretty close. The largest hellbender ever recorded was just over 29 inches long! Hellbenders can weigh up to about 4 - 5 lbs. Their close relatives in Japan and China, salamanders in the genus Andrias, can reach lengths over 5 feet and may weigh as much as 100 lbs.

Hellbenders have a flat body and head, a large, very keeled tail that helps to propel them through the water, and tiny eyes. They have fleshy folds of skin along the sides of their body which help to take in oxygen from the water. The arms and legs are very large and muscular and they have 5 fingers on their rear feet and 4 on the front feet. Hellbenders can range in color from dull brown or gray to bright orange or red. They usually have some sort of darker spots or blotches on their bodies, but the belly is usually only one color. If you pick up a hellbender you will find out very quickly that they are extremely slimy! This makes them very difficult to catch and to handle, but it probably serves the purpose of keeping them free from infections and may help to cut down on the friction of the very fast flowing water they live in. Hellbenders do h

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However, major evolution should have happened in 160 million years!

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However, major evolution should have happened in 160 million years! That's why the researchers conclude that cryptobranchid salamanders alive today ‘can be regarded as living fossils'.

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Originally posted by filthy

I object to the term: "living fossil." These animals are not fossils at all but merely related, sometimes very closely, to ancient species. The horse shoe crab, for example. But I suppose that it makes for some fairly good, if silly, prose.
Now they are insulting one of my favorites in this manner:

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But what about the ‘millions-of-years' date assigned to the fossils; surely those ages are not consistent with the Bible? Indeed, they are not. For one thing, the universe is only around 6,000 years old according to the Scriptures, and secondly, there was no death of animals or man before Adam sinned, so these fossilized creatures must have died after that time, not before.

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Originally posted by Chippewa

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Originally posted by filthy

I object to the term: "living fossil." These animals are not fossils at all but merely related, sometimes very closely, to ancient species. The horse shoe crab, for example. But I suppose that it makes for some fairly good, if silly, prose.
Now they are insulting one of my favorites in this manner:

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From the article:

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But what about the ‘millions-of-years' date assigned to the fossils; surely those ages are not consistent with the Bible? Indeed, they are not. For one thing, the universe is only around 6,000 years old according to the Scriptures, and secondly, there was no death of animals or man before Adam sinned, so these fossilized creatures must have died after that time, not before.

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This shows one of many irrational and immoral aspects of fundamentalist "thinking":
So some poor self-respecting Great White Shark swimming in the ocean at the time of Adam & Eve, who didn't know them from...well, from "Adam" - suddenly is condemned to death; along with dolphins, crustaceans, jellyfish, fish, land mammals, insects, grass, pine trees, bunny rabbits, you name it, all because Adam & Eve "sinned."

And many of these crazy people are running the country!

BTW: The Horseshoe Crab is really cool. Looks like some alien being, and has blood based on copper, not iron!

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Why would "major evolution" happen in any time frame? We have sharks and aligators that are fairly ancient. And of course there's the infamous Celocanth. And we have viruses that have evoloved dramatically over night. It isn't just a straw man, it isn't even correct.

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