It's an old story. An animal or plant is discovered in sedimentary rocks by paleontologists and it pushes the organism's origin further back by many millions of years—but it's always a plant or animal already known to science. Granted, some of these fossilized creatures are extinct, but that's no indication they evolved.

On January 21, 2015 the news broke—an Australian fisherman hooked a "living fossil." Called the frilled (or frill) shark (genus Chlamydoselachus, belonging to Order Hexanchiformes), this creature was thought to be 80 million years old.¹ It looks mighty frightening, but is it truly "prehistoric" and somehow linked to shark evolution?

Either the current animals on this planet somehow evolved from simple creatures or they suddenly appeared—amazingly complex the first time we find them—with no evolutionary ancestors. Put another way: Are animals the result of chance, time, and natural processes—or are they the result of purpose, plan, and special creation?

Recently there has been some celebration from the Darwinian community regarding a discovery of a fossil¹ that allegedly links terrestrial animals to their future aquatic relatives: the ichthyosaurs.