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The first known footprints on land date to 530 Ma. [74] 520 Ma Earliest graptolites. [75] 511 Ma Earliest crustaceans. [76] 505 Ma Fossilization of the Burgess Shale: 500 Ma Jellyfish have existed since at least this time. 485 Ma First vertebrates with true bones (jawless fishes). 450 Ma First complete conodonts and echinoids appear. 440 Ma
A variation of this analogy instead compresses Earth's 4.6 billion year-old history into a single day: While the Earth still forms at midnight, and the present day is also represented by midnight, the first life on Earth would appear at 4:00 am, dinosaurs would appear at 10:00 pm, the first flowers 10:30 pm, the first primates 11:30 pm, and ...
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 ...
They first appeared in the fossil record around 66 million years ago, soon after the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event that eliminated about three-quarters of plant and animal species on Earth, including most dinosaurs. [25] [26] One of the last Plesiadapiformes is Carpolestes simpsoni, having grasping digits but not forward-facing eyes.
Much later in the geologic record, likely starting in 1.73 Ga, preserved molecular compounds of biologic origin are indicative of aerobic life. [6] Therefore, the earliest time for the origin of life on Earth is at least 3.5 billion years ago and possibly as early as 4.1 billion years ago — not long after the oceans formed 4.5 billion years ...
Eukaryogenesis, the process which created the eukaryotic cell and lineage, is a milestone in the evolution of life, since eukaryotes include all complex cells and almost all multicellular organisms. The process is widely agreed to have involved symbiogenesis , in which an archaeon and a bacterium came together to create the first eukaryotic ...
The earliest-known dinosaur fossils date to roughly 230 million years ago, including Eoraptor and Herrerasaurus from Argentina, Saturnalia from southern Brazil and Mbiresaurus from Zimbabwe.
The latter two are sub-divided into several eras as currently defined. In total, the Precambrian comprises some 85% of geological time from the formation of Earth to the time when creatures first developed exoskeletons (i.e., hard outer parts) and thereby left abundant fossil remains.