Elvis taxon

English dictionary entry

Meanings

noun
  1. A taxon that has been misidentified as having re-emerged in the fossil record after a period of presumed extinction, but is not actually a descendant of the original taxon, instead having developed a similar morphology through convergent evolution.

Word forms

Elvis taxon Elvis taxa

Etymology

Coined in a 1993 paper by D. H. Erwin and M. L. Droser, with reference to the prevalence of impersonators of the singer Elvis Presley.

Related words

This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.