What Living Evidence Do We Have of Prehistoric Animals?

The other day, I was having an interesting debate with a biblical scholar friend of mine. You see, he doesn't buy into the whole evolutionary theory, and whereas I admit there are holes in it, that is to say the exact timeline - we cannot know for sure because we just don't have the fossil records for everything - still, that doesn't mean we can deny evolution because we can see it in real-time, we can see the changes, not only in our own species, but in all the others as well. There is enough fossil record to see those changes, and they can't be denied.

Then of course we have dinosaur bones, and despite popular biblical mythology, as was told to me by more than one person over the years, God did not put dinosaur bones on the planet to trick humans and to test their faith. To insist that God put dinosaur bones out there to trick us, or the devil did to get us to move away from God, is about the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard in my life. I hope you don't buy into any of those fantasy theories. My acquaintance asked me; what living evidence do we have that prehistoric animals ever existed?

Yes, let's a good question, and because the fossil record is broken, and we can figure out the entire lineage, what if I suggested that we do have living evidence today that prehistoric animals existed in the past? Let me go ahead and give you a few ideas to ponder, and a few species that we might consider when approaching this argument, for instance;

Turtles
Buffalo
Condors
Alligators
Polar Bears
Dragon Flies
Road Runners (Mini-Velociraptor)
Sharks (relative of the Megalodon)
Big Cats (related to the Saber Toothed Tiger)
Elephants (related to the Wholly Mammoth)

Now then, my question to you would be what species in prehistoric periods would you say that humans are related to? It seems that many evolutionary biologists and those that study the genetic variation in our own DNA believe that humans had evolved from a Tree Shrew. As crazy as that sounds, it actually makes sense, because even rats and mice are very similar in their genetic makeup to humans. Could it be that humans are evolved rodents? Well, that probably deflates your ego a little bit, but maybe humans are living proof of prehistoric animals. Have you ever thought there?

Maybe we are former dinosaurs, the ones which survived because they grew smaller as the vegetation was lessened? Maybe they were able to live underground until the vegetation came back? Maybe we are that living proof along with these other animals that I have cited above. The concept isn't hard to grasp, and it's worthy of taking a look at.

From an observational standpoint it all makes sense, but it certainly doesn't make sense to anyone who has complete faith in biblical mythology, or the religious doctrines of past periods which have been passed onward. That's not my fault, and it's not my problem. Indeed I ask that you please consider all this and think on it.