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Earliest evidence (from rocks) that oxygen was in the atmosphere 1.2 billion years ago Red and brown algae become structurally more complex than bacteria 0.75 billion years ago Green algae outperform red and brown algae in the strong light of shallow water 0.475 billion years ago First land plants – mosses and liverworts 0.423 billion years ago
Land plants evolved from a group of freshwater green algae, perhaps as early as 850 mya, [3] but algae-like plants might have evolved as early as 1 billion years ago. [2] The closest living relatives of land plants are the charophytes, specifically Charales; if modern Charales are similar to the distant ancestors they share with land plants, this means that the land plants evolved from a ...
The first fossil records of vascular plants, that is, land plants with vascular tissues, appeared in the Silurian period. The earliest known representatives of this group (mostly from the northern hemisphere) are placed in the genus Cooksonia. They had very simple branching patterns, with the branches terminated by flattened sporangia.
Fossils preserved within ancient rock may prove that photosynthesis started way earlier than we thought.
First signs of teeth in fish. Earliest Nautilida, lycophytes, and trimerophytes. 488–400 Ma First cephalopods [78] and chitons. [79] 395 Ma First lichens, stoneworts. Earliest harvestmen, mites, hexapods (springtails) and ammonoids. The earliest known tracks on land named the Zachelmie trackways which are possibly related to icthyostegalians.
Fossils preserved within ancient rock may prove that photosynthesis started way earlier than we thought.
As for life on land, in 2019 scientists reported the discovery of a fossilized fungus, named Ourasphaira giraldae, in the Canadian Arctic, that may have grown on land a billion years ago, well before plants are thought to have been living on land. [99] [100] [101] The earliest life on land may have been bacteria 3.22 billion years ago. [102]
The history of life on Earth traces the processes by which living and extinct organisms evolved, from the earliest emergence of life to the present day. Earth formed about 4.5 billion years ago (abbreviated as Ga, for gigaannum) and evidence suggests that life emerged prior to 3.7 Ga. [1] [2] [3] The similarities among all known present-day species indicate that they have diverged through the ...