What Conan Doyle got right — intuitively, without being able to articulate it in the genetic terms that were not available in 1912 — is the concept of isolation as an evolutionary laboratory.

The tepui summits are genuinely places where long isolation has produced extraordinary and unusual life forms.

But the mechanism is not the preservation of ancient life unchanged.

It is the evolution of new forms from colonists of more recent origin.

The “lost world” of the tepuis is not a preserve of the Mesozoic — it is a workshop of the Cenozoic, where isolation has been driving evolutionary innovation for millions of years.

This distinction is important, and it is one that popular descriptions of Roraima — including those inspired by Conan Doyle — frequently blur.