New research has found that a family of mammals with unusual and bizarre features moved underground tens of millions of years ago and survived the mass extinction event, the Necrolestes, 65 million years ago  The creature, nicknamed the grave robber, was long thought to be a marsupial  However, closer analysis revealed that it actually belonged to an entirely unexpected branch of the evolutionary tree of mammals, which are thought to have gone extinct 45 million years before the Necrolestes
Species deemed extinct could be 'rediscovered'
 This is a classic example of the lazarus effect, which describes a group of organisms that live much longer than originally expected