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539 Ma – present. The Phanerozoic Eon (Greek: period of well-displayed life) marks the appearance in the fossil record of abundant, shell-forming and/or trace-making organisms. It is subdivided into three eras, the Paleozoic, Mesozoic and Cenozoic, with major mass extinctions at division points.
The earliest known life forms on Earth may be as old as 4.1 billion years (or Ga) according to biologically fractionated graphite inside a single zircon grain in the Jack Hills range of Australia. [2] The earliest evidence of life found in a stratigraphic unit, not just a single mineral grain, is the 3.7 Ga metasedimentary rocks containing ...
Eukaryotes first emerged during the Paleoproterozoic, likely as flagellated cells. The leading evolutionary theory is they were created by symbiogenesis between an anaerobic Asgard archaean and an aerobic proteobacterium, which formed the mitochondria. A second episode of symbiogenesis with a cyanobacterium created the plants, with chloroplasts.
This is an accepted version of this page This is the latest accepted revision, reviewed on 26 August 2024. Process in which chromosomes are replicated and separated into two new identical nuclei For the type of cell division in sexually reproducing organisms used to produce gametes, see Meiosis. For excessive constriction of the pupils, see Miosis. For the parasitic infestation, see Myiasis ...
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 ...
Proposals that one type of animal, even humans, could descend from other types of animals, are known to go back to the pre-Socratic Greek philosophers. Anaximander of Miletus (c. 610 – c. 546 BC) proposed that the first animals lived in water, during a wet phase of the Earth's past, and that the first land-dwelling ancestors of mankind must have been born in water, and only spent part of ...
The initial development of the cell marked the passage from prebiotic chemistry to partitioned units resembling modern cells. The final transition to living entities that fulfill all the definitions of modern cells depended on the ability to evolve effectively by natural selection. This transition has been called the Darwinian transition.
In the eukaryotic fossil record, sexual reproduction first appeared about 2.0 billion years ago in the Proterozoic Eon, [63] [64] although a later date, 1.2 billion years ago, has also been presented. [65] [66] Nonetheless, all sexually reproducing eukaryotic organisms likely derive from a single-celled common ancestor.