Just because a species is presumed extinct doesn’t mean it’s gone forever. Here are four glowing examples of this unique, and felicitous, phenomenon.
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Not all species that have been classified as “extinct” are actually extinct. Biologists have a term for these “second-chance” species: Lazarus taxa. They use this to describe organisms that disappear from fossil records or modern observations, only to reappear against all odds decades, centuries or even millennia later.
These rediscoveries remind us that extinction, at least in the observational sense, can sometimes be a matter of human perspective, rather than a scientific reality. Here are four of the most remarkable rediscovery examples, each of which reveals something profound about survival and scientific humility.
1. The Coelacanth: The Fish That Time Forgot
The coelacanth fish was thought to have went extinct tens of millions of years ago. Turns out, it still swims today.
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Few rediscoveries have shaken science as deeply as that of the coelacanth (Latimeria chalumnae). As research explains, this lobe-finned fish was thought to have vanished roughly 66 million years ago, as it was known only from fossils.
This theory lost all its integrity in 1938, when a South African trawler accidentally hauled one up near the mouth of the Chalumna River in the Eastern Cape. Soon after, a museum curator named Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer recognized its strange, archaic form and immediately alerted ichthyologist J.L.B. Smith. Smith was eventually able to confirm the astonishing find.
The coelacanth lineage dates back over 400 million years ago to the Devonian Period. It’s a relative of the early fish that gave rise to amphibians — and, eventually, to humans. Modern coelacanths inhabit deep submarine caves along the coasts of East Africa and Indonesia. They typically live at depths anywhere between 150 to 700 meters, where temperatures are stable and light scarce.
What makes the coelacanth so biologically fascinating is its incredibly unique anatomy. Their lobed fins move in an alternating, almost “walking” motion, similar to the gait of a tetrapod. They also possess a vestigial lung, a leftover from ancestors that ventured into shallow oxygen-poor waters. Recent radiocarbon dating studies show that individual coelacanths can live up to 100 years, with females not reaching sexual maturity until around 50.
2. The Lord Howe Island Stick Insect: The Tree Lobster Returns
Dryococelus australis, known as the Lord Howe Island stick insect or tree lobster, was thought to have gone extinct, but was rediscovered in 2001.
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The Lord Howe Island stick insect (Dryococelus australis) was believed to have been wiped out by a shipwreck. Bizarrely, nearly a century later, it was found clinging to life on a single volcanic rock.
As research from Biodiversity & Conservation notes, this large, flightless insect was once abundant on Lord Howe Island, off Australia’s east coast, but was eventually declared extinct in the 1920s. This came after a plague of rats escaped from a grounded supply ship and devastated local fauna.
For decades, entomologists mourned its loss — until 2001, when climbers on Ball’s Pyramid, a sheer basalt spire 23 kilometers away, found a tiny population living under a single shrub. DNA analysis confirmed the identity match: the so-called “tree lobsters” of Ball’s Pyramid were, indeed, Lord Howe stick insects.
3. The Takahe: A Flightless Bird’s Second Flight
The takahe is still endangered, though not extinct as many believed up until its rediscovery in the mid-1900s.
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Scientists declared New Zealand’s takahe extinct in 1898, having believed that introduced predators like stoats and cats had eliminated the last of these large, flightless birds.
But, as 2020 research from the New Zealand Journal of Zoology explains, this was not the case. In 1948, a field ranger named Geoffrey Orbell made an astonishing find in the remote Murchison Mountains of New Zealand’s South Island. Here, he observed several living specimens — that were unmistakable takahes, with their deep blue feathers and vivid red beaks.
Unlike the more common pukeko (a related swamp hen), takahes are mountain dwellers. They’re well-adapted to subalpine grasslands. They feed primarily on snow tussock — a slow-growing grass — and use their strong bills to strip away the nutritious bases of each blade. Their survival in such harsh, isolated terrain is likely precisely what shielded them from invasive predators for decades.
Fortuitously, intensive conservation management has allowed the once tiny takahe population to climb to over 500 individuals.
4. The Night Parrot: The Phantom Of The Outback
For Australian ornithologists, few birds come close to being as elusive — nor as legendary — as the night parrot (Pezoporus occidentalis). The species was first described in 1861 based on anecdotal reports of observations, but supposedly disappeared from view by the early 20th century. For more than 80 years, no confirmed sightings existed. Some doubted it survived at all.
Then, in 2013, naturalist John Young captured the first verified photographs of a living night parrot in Queensland’s arid interior. As a 2019 study from Australian Field Ornithology explains, follow-up research was eventually able to confirm that small populations in several isolated desert regions were thriving. The bird’s secretive, nocturnal habits and remote habitat are likely what allowed it to evade detection for nearly a century.
Lessons From The “Lazarus” Phenomenon
It’s important to mention that rediscovery does not guarantee a species security. Most Lazarus taxa remain critically endangered to this day, well after their return to the scientific record. Although rediscovery does offer these species a second chance, it also comes with great responsibility on our part. Conservationists must act as quickly as possible in order to protect these species from the same forces that nearly erased them in the first place.
The coelacanth, the stick insect, the takahe and the night parrot each demonstrate the resilience of life and the humility of science. Extinction, it turns out, is not always forever. However, our collective complacency can make it so.
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