In paleontology, an Elvis taxon (plural Elvis taxa) is a taxon that has been misidentified as having re-emerged in the fossil record after a period of presumed extinction, but is not actually a descendant of the original taxon, instead having developed a similar morphology by convergent evolution.
The term "Elvis taxon" was coined by D. H. Erwin and M. L. Droser in a 1993 paper to distinguish descendant from non-descendant taxa:[1] Rather than continue the biblical tradition favored by Jablonski [for Lazarus taxa], we prefer a more topical approach and suggest that such taxa should be known as Elvis taxa, in recognition of the many Elvis impersonators who have appeared since the death of The King.
[2]By contrast, a Lazarus taxon is one that really is a descendant of the original taxon, and highlights transitional fossil records, which might be found later.
A zombie taxon has been considered a Lazarus taxon because it has been collected from younger strata, but it later turns out to be a fossil that was freed from the original seam and was refossilized in a sediment of a younger age.
An example is a trilobite that gets eroded out of its Cambrian-aged limestone matrix and reworked into Miocene-aged siltstone.