Bahwa fosil setiap jenis menampakkan kesamaan yang bisa dikenal selama kemunculan mereka dalam rekaman fosil, telah diketahui ahli paleontolgi sejak lama sebelum Darwin menerbitkan buku Origin-nya.
That individual kinds of fossils remain recognizably the same throughout the length of their occurrence in the fossil record had been known to paleontologists long before Darwin published his Origin.