Evolution of Life On Earth

About 3.5 – 3.
8 billion years of simple cells (Prokaryotes)

is a single-celled organism that lacks a nucleus and
other membrane-bound organelles. Organisms with nuclei
are placed in a third domain, Eukaryota. In the study of the
origins of life, prokaryotes are thought to have arisen
before eukaryotes.
3 billion years of PHOTOSYNTHESIS
photosynthesis is a process used by plants and other
organisms to convert light energy into chemical energy
that, through cellular respiration, can later be released to
fuel the organism's activities.
2 billion years of complex cells (Eukaryotes)
Eukaryotes are organisms whose cells have a nucleus. All
animals, plants, fungi, and many unicellular organisms,
are Eukaryotes. They belong to the group of organisms
Eukaryota or Eukarya, which is one of the three domains
of life. Bacteria and Archaea make up the other two
domains.
1 billion years of multicellular life
Fossil 'balls' are 1 billion years old and could
be Earth's oldest known multicellular life. The
spherical fossils came from sediments that were formerly
at the bottom of a lake.
600 million years of simple animals
Around 600 million years of simple animals the smallest
war worm/small worm that they called acoela. Trichoplax
remains the simplest animal known about.
570 million years of arthropods (ancestors of
insect, arachnids and crustaceans)
Arthropods is a phylum that includes insects and spiders.
They are invertebrates, which means they do not have an
internal skeleton and backbone. Instead, they have a
hard exoskeleton on the outside, the top layer of which is
known as the cuticle. The cuticle is made out of proteins
and is very versatile.
550 million years of complex animals
The first animals to have complex skeletons existed
about 550 million years ago, millions of years earlier than
previously thought, according to a new study. Scientists
studied fossils of tiny marine creatures unearthed in
Namibia which may be related to many of today animal
species.
500 million years of fish and proto-amphibians
475 million years of land plants
The earliest fossil evidence for land plants comes from
microscopic dispersed spores. These microfossils are
abundant and widely distributed in sediments, and the
earliest generally accepted reports are from rocks of mid-
Ordovician age (Llanvirn, 475 million years ago)
400 million years of insects and seeds
The first insects were landbound, but about 400
million years ago in the Devonian period one lineage
of insects evolved flight, the first animals to do
so. The oldest insect fossil has been proposed to
be Rhyniognatha hirsti, estimated to be 400 million
years old, but the insect identity of the fossil has
been contested.
360 million years of amphibians
Reptiles are thought to have evolved from amphibians
within the subclass Labyrinthodontia sometime during
the Carboniferous period (360 to 300 million years ago).
300 million years of reptiles

Reptiles originated approximately 300 million years ago
during the Carboniferous period. One of the oldest
known amniotes is Casineria.
200 million years of mammals
Mammals are descended from mammal-like reptiles,
called pelycosaurs. The first warm-blooded mammal was
the cynodonts.
150 million years of birds
Archaeopteryx is considered by many to be the first bird,
being of about 150 million years of age. It is actually
intermediate between the birds that we see flying
around in our backyards and the predatory dinosaurs like
Deinonychus.
130 million years of flowers
65 million years since the non-avion dinosaurs died
out
2.5 million years since the appearance of homo
The genus Homo originated some time between 3.0 and
2.5 million years ago,
Although there are no definitive specimens of Homo
from this time period, the Homo lineage most likely
diverged in Africa because the earliest putative Homo
fossils are all African.
200,000 years since the appearance of modern
humans
Modern humans originated in Africa within the past
200,000 years and evolved from their most likely recent
common ancestor, Homo erectus, which means ‘upright
man’ in Latin. Homo erectus is an extinct species of
human that lived between 1.9 million and 135,000 years
ago.

Evolution of Life On Earth

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About 3.5 – 3.

8 billion years of simple cells (Prokaryotes)

300 million years of reptiles

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