National Geographic has just released in its October issue, a 3 year old story about a new discovery in Palau. The story of a living fossil in Blue Holes found by a Japanese diver. By Living fossil, we mean, as Darwin was calling it, animals that have survived for millions of years without evolving. Indeed, the Protoanguila Palau eel has survived for 200 millions of years, around the dawn of the age of the dinosaurs, without evolving.
The eel has internal organs and body parts unlike those of any known eel, alive or extinct. So far, it has only been found in a particular cave around 115 feet below the ocean’s surface, although scientists speculate that its ideal habitat is more common in deeper water. Scientists didn’t think it was an eel at first until anatomical and molecular analysis confirmed the classification. It has primitive features, fewer than 90 vertebrae, fused skull bones, an upper jaw bone and toothed gill rakers that initially baffled researchers.
Neco Marine 