I hate the phrase “living fossil.” The term should be eradicated from the vocabulary of science writers, and anyone who employs it should be promptly encased in Carbonite. “Missing link” is the only slogan that pisses me off more.

My acute allergic reaction to the idiom may be a little overwrought, I admit. But, to me, “living fossil” is nonsense that obscures more than it elucidates. Take the coelacanth, for example.

The coelacanth is the quintessential primeval creature – a form of fish that was thought to have disappeared with the last of the non-avian dinosaurs about 66 million years ago, at least until Marjorie Courtnay-Latimer recognized a modern one at a South African fish market