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Index fossils must have a short vertical range, wide geographic distribution and rapid evolutionary trends. Another term, "zone fossil", is used when the fossil has all the characters stated above except wide geographical distribution; thus, they correlate the surrounding rock to a biozone rather than a specific time period.
The list of fossils begins with Graecopithecus, dated some 7.2 million years ago, which may or may not still be ancestral to both the human and the chimpanzee lineage. For the earlier history of the human lineage, see Timeline of human evolution#Hominidae, Hominidae#Phylogeny.
The timeline of the evolutionary history of life represents the current scientific theory outlining the major events during the development of life on planet Earth. Dates in this article are consensus estimates based on scientific evidence , mainly fossils .
Urmetazoan: The first fossils that might represent animals appear in the 665-million-year-old rocks of the Trezona Formation of South Australia. These fossils are interpreted as being early sponges. [7] Multicellular animals may have existed from 800 Ma. Separation from the Porifera lineage.
1901 — Petroleum geologist W.W. Orcutt recovers first fossils from the La Brea Tar Pits in Southern California, a rich source of ice age mammal remains. 1905 — Dippy the diplodocus is exhibited in London's Natural History Museum; its multiple casts and high profile make the word dinosaur a household name
The oldest fossils from 8.9 million years ago included megalodon teeth. Megalodon sharks were massive, and so were their teeth. Those shown here belonged to juveniles.
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 ...
Aloft over the landscape of Bavaria some 147 million years ago was a pterosaur - an ancient flying reptile - with a wing span of about 7 feet (2 meters), a bony crest on front of its snout and a ...