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Lazarus species

Lazarus species noun: a species that was thought to be extinct but has been rediscovered.

Noun

Lazarus species (plural Lazarus species)

  1. A species that was thought to be extinct but has been rediscovered.
  2. A species that disappears from the fossil record only to reappear in much later deposits.
    • The term ‘Lazarus species’ was coined by the palaeontologist David Jablonski to describe a taxon that was thought to have gone extinct during a mass extinction event, but which is found to exist several million years later.2018, Tim Flannery, Europe: A Natural History, page 37

Forms of Lazarus species

pluralLazarus species

Origin of Lazarus species

Referring to the Biblical story of Lazarus, who was raised from the dead.

Questions about Lazarus species

What does Lazarus species mean?
Lazarus species means a species that was thought to be extinct but has been rediscovered.
What part of speech is Lazarus species?
Lazarus species is a noun.
What is the plural of Lazarus species?
The plural of Lazarus species is Lazarus species.

Words near Lazarus species in the dictionary

  1. Lazarus Island
  2. Lazarus layer
  3. Lazarus layers
  4. Lazarus of Bethany
  5. Lazarus sign
  6. Lazarus species
  7. Lazarus syndrome
  8. Lazarus taxa
  9. Lazarus taxon
  10. Lazarused
  11. Lazaruses

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Lazarus species (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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