Animals that are Living Fossils

What is a living fossil?

A living fossil is an animal species that has no other living relatives within the same genus or family. Living fossil species have often survived through major extinction events.

Check out the list of living fossils below and you will notice the uniqueness of many of these species. Click on the animal image or species name to see more images and details about these living fossils.

More Animal Lists for Kids

Animal Image	Animal Name	Description
	Aardvark	Elephants are one of their closest living relatives.
	Nautilus	Ancient Nautilus shells have been found that date back 500 million years.
	Platypus	Platyplus-like fossils fave been found that are over 150 million years old.
	Purple Frog	The Purple Frog's nearest relative lives on the Seychelles islands. These islands were once connected to India where the Purple Frog lives. This likely indicates that these frogs have been around for 100 million years or more when the land masses were connected.
	Red Panda	Red Pandas are barely related to the Giant Pandas. They are only distantly related to weasels and raccoons.
	Tuatara	There are two species of Tuatara that exist today and they are very similar to what their ancient ancestors were like 200 million years ago.