The first animal in the world. Many millions of years ago: the world's first animals

Ichthyostega's skull was similar to that of a lobe-finned fish Eusthenopteron, but a pronounced neck separated the body from the head. While the Ichthyostega had four strong limbs, the shape of its hind legs suggests that this animal did not spend all of its time on land.

The first reptiles and the amniotic egg

Hatching a turtle from an egg

One of the greatest evolutionary innovations of the Carboniferous (360 - 268 million years ago) was the amniotic egg, which allowed early reptiles to move away from coastal habitats and colonize dry areas. The amniotic egg allowed the ancestors of birds, mammals and reptiles to breed on land, and prevent the embryo inside from drying out, so you could do without water. It also meant that, unlike amphibians, reptiles were able to produce fewer eggs at any given time, as the risks of hatchlings were reduced.

The earliest date for the development of an amniotic egg is about 320 million years ago. However, reptiles were not exposed to any significant adaptive radiation for about 20 million years. The current thinking is that these early amniotes still spent time in the water and came ashore mainly to lay their eggs rather than feed. Only after the evolution of herbivores did new groups of reptiles emerge that could exploit the abundant floristic diversity of the Carboniferous.

Hylonomus

The early reptiles belonged to an order called the captorhinids. Gilonomus were representatives of this detachment. They were small, lizard-sized animals with amphibian skulls, shoulders, pelvis, and limbs, as well as intermediate teeth and vertebrae. The rest of the skeleton was reptilian. Many of these new "reptilian" features are also seen in small, modern amphibians.

First mammals

Dimetrodon

A major transition in the evolution of life occurred when mammals evolved from a single lineage of reptiles. This transition began during the Permian period (286 - 248 million years ago), when a group of reptiles that included the Dimetrodons gave birth to the "terrible" therapsids. (Other large branches, sauropsids, gave rise to birds and modern reptiles.) These reptilian mammals in turn gave birth to cynodonts such as Thrinaxodon ( Thrinaxodon) during the Triassic period.

Trinaxodon

This evolutionary line provides an excellent series of transitional fossils. The development of a key mammalian feature, the presence of a single bone in the lower jaw (compared to several in reptiles), can be traced in the fossil history of this group. It includes excellent transitional fossils, Diarthrognathus and Morganucodon, whose lower jaws have both reptilian and mammalian articulations with the upper ones. Other new features found in this lineage include the development of different types of teeth (a feature known as heterodontia), the formation of a secondary palate, and an increase in dentary bone in the lower jaw. The legs are located directly below the body, an evolutionary advance that occurred in the ancestors of the dinosaurs.

The end of the Permian period was marked by perhaps the greatest. According to some estimates, up to 90% of the species became extinct. (Recent studies have suggested that this event was caused by an asteroid impact that triggered climate change.) During the subsequent Triassic period (248 to 213 million years ago), the survivors of the mass extinction began to occupy vacant ecological niches.

However, at the end of the Permian, it was dinosaurs, not reptile mammals, that took advantage of the new available ecological niches to diversify into dominant land vertebrates. In the sea, ray-finned fish began a process of adaptive radiation that made their class the most species-rich of all classes of vertebrates.

Dinosaur classification

One of the major changes in the group of reptiles that gave birth to the dinosaurs was in the posture of the animals. The arrangement of the limbs has changed: previously they protruded on the sides, and then began to grow directly under the body. This had major implications for locomotion, as it allowed for more energy-efficient movements.

Triceratops

Dinosaurs, or "terrible lizards", are divided into two groups based on the structure of the hip joint: lizards and ornithischians. Ornithischians include Triceratops, Iguanodon, Hadrosaurus, and Stegosaurus). The lizards are further subdivided into theropods (eg Coelophys and Tyrannosaurus Rex) and sauropods (eg Apatosaurus). Most scientists agree that from theropod dinosaurs.

Although dinosaurs and their immediate ancestors dominated the terrestrial world during the Triassic, mammals continued to evolve during this time.

Further development of early mammals

Mammals are highly developed synapsids. Synapsids are one of the two great branches of the amniote family tree. Amniotes are a group of animals that are characterized by having embryonic membranes, including reptiles, birds, and mammals. Another large amniotic group, the Diapsid, includes birds and all living and extinct reptiles except turtles. Turtles belong to the third group of amniotes - Anapsids. Members of these groups are classified according to the number of openings in the temporal region of the skull.

Dimetrodon

Synapsids are characterized by the presence of a pair of accessory openings in the skull behind the eyes. This discovery gave synapsids (and similarly diapsids, which have two pairs of holes) stronger jaw muscles and better biting abilities than early animals. Pelycosaurs (such as Dimetrodon and Edaphosaurus) were early synapsids; they were reptilian mammals. Later synapsids included therapsids and cynodonts, which lived during the Triassic period.

cynodont

Cynodonts shared many characteristic mammalian features, including a reduced number or complete absence of lumbar ribs, suggesting a diaphragm; well developed fangs and secondary palate; increased size of the dentition; openings for nerves and blood vessels in the lower jaw, indicating the presence of whiskers.

About 125 million years ago, mammals had already become a diverse group of organisms. Some of these would have been similar to today's monotremes (such as the platypus and echidna), but early marsupials (a group that includes modern kangaroos and opossums) were also present. Until recently, placental mammals (the group to which most living mammals belong) were thought to be of a later evolutionary origin. However, recent discovered fossils and DNA evidence suggest that placental mammals are much older, and may have evolved over 105 million years ago.

Note that marsupials and placental mammals provide excellent examples of convergent evolution, where organisms that are not particularly closely related developed similar body shapes in response to similar environmental exposures.

Plesiosaurs

However, despite the fact that mammals had what many consider "advanced", they were still minor players on the world stage. When the world entered the Jurassic period (213 - 145 million years ago), the dominant animals on land, in the sea and in the air were reptiles. Dinosaurs, more numerous and unusual than during the Triassic, were the main land animals; crocodiles, ichthyosaurs, and plesiosaurs ruled the sea, and pterosaurs populated the air.

Archeopteryx and the evolution of birds

Archeopteryx

In 1861, an intriguing fossil was discovered in the Solnhofen Jurassic limestone in southern Germany, a source of rare but exceptionally well-preserved fossils. The fossil seemed to combine features of both birds and reptiles: a reptilian skeleton accompanied by a clear imprint of feathers.

While Archeopteryx was originally described as a feathered reptile, it has long been considered a transitional form between birds and reptiles, making it one of the most important fossils ever discovered. Until recently, it was the earliest known bird. Recently, scientists have realized that Archeopteryx bears more resemblance to the maniraptors, a group of dinosaurs that includes the infamous Jurassic Park velociraptors, than to modern birds. Thus, Archeopteryx provides a strong phylogenetic relationship between the two groups. Fossil birds have been found in China that are even older than Archeopteryx, and other feathered dinosaur discoveries support the theory that theropods evolved feathers for insulation and thermoregulation before birds used them for flight.

Looking closer at the early history of birds is a good example of the concept that evolution is neither linear nor progressive. The bird lineage is erratic and many "experimental" forms appear. Not everyone achieved the ability to fly, and some looked nothing like modern birds. For example, Microraptor gui, which appears to have been a flying animal with asymmetrical flight feathers on all four limbs, was a dromaeosaurid. Archeopteryx itself did not belong to the lineage from which true birds evolved ( Neornithes), but was a member of the now-extinct enanciornis birds ( Enantiornithes).

End of the Dinosaur Age

Dinosaurs spread throughout the world during the Jurassic, but during the subsequent Cretaceous (145 - 65 million years ago) their species diversity declined. In fact, many of the typically Mesozoic organisms such as ammonites, belemnites, ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, and pterosaurs were in decline during this time, despite still giving rise to new species.

The emergence of flowering plants during the early Cretaceous caused a major adaptive radiation among insects: new groups such as butterflies, moths, ants and bees emerged. These insects drank the nectar from the flowers and acted as pollinators.

The mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous, 65 million years ago, wiped out the dinosaurs, along with any other land animal weighing more than 25 kg. This paved the way for the expansion of mammals on land. In the sea at this time, fish again became the dominant vertebrate taxon.

modern mammals

At the beginning of the Paleocene (65 - 55.5 million years ago), the world was left without large land animals. This unique situation was the starting point for a great evolutionary diversification of mammals, which were previously nocturnal animals the size of small rodents. By the end of the era, these representatives of the fauna occupied many of the free ecological niches.

The oldest confirmed primate fossils are about 60 million years old. Early primates evolved from ancient nocturnal insectivores, something like shrews, and resembled lemurs or tarsiers. They were probably arboreal animals and lived in or subtropical forests. Many of their characteristic features were well suited to this habitat: gripping hands, rotating shoulder joints, and stereoscopic vision. They also had a relatively large brain size and claws on their fingers.

The earliest known fossils of most modern orders of mammals appear in a short period during the early Eocene (55.5-37.7 million years ago). Both groups of modern ungulates - artiodactyls (a detachment to which cows and pigs belong) and equids (including horses, rhinos and tapirs) became widespread throughout North America and Europe.

Ambulocetus

At the same time that mammals were diversifying on land, they were also returning to the sea. The evolutionary transitions that led to whales have been extensively studied in recent years with extensive fossil finds from India, Pakistan and the Middle East. These fossils point to a change from terrestrial Mesonychia, which are the likely ancestors of whales, to animals such as Ambulocetus and primitive whales called Archaeocetes.

The trend towards a cooler global climate that occurred during the Oligocene epoch (33.7-22.8 million years ago) contributed to the emergence of grasses, which were to spread to vast grasslands during the subsequent Miocene (23.8-5.3 million years ago). ). This change in vegetation led to the evolution of animals, such as more modern horses, with teeth that could handle the high silica content of grasses. The cooling trend has also affected the oceans, reducing the abundance of marine plankton and invertebrates.

Although DNA evidence suggests that hominids evolved during the Oligocene, abundant fossils did not appear until the Miocene. Hominids, on the evolutionary line leading to humans, first appear in the fossil record during the Pliocene (5.3 - 2.6 million years ago).

During the entire Pleistocene (2.6 million - 11.7 thousand years ago) there were about twenty cycles of cold ice age and warm interglacial periods at intervals of about 100,000 years. During the Ice Age, glaciers dominated the landscape, snow and ice spread into the lowlands, and transported vast amounts of rock. Because a lot of water was locked up on the ice, the sea level dropped to 135 m than it is now. Wide land bridges allowed plants and animals to move. During warm periods, large areas were again submerged under water. These repeated episodes of environmental fragmentation resulted in rapid adaptive radiation in many species.

The Holocene is the current epoch of geological time. Another term that is sometimes used is the Anthropocene because its main characteristic is the global changes caused by human activities. However, this term can be misleading; modern humans were already created long before the beginning of the era. The Holocene epoch began 11.7 thousand years ago and continues to the present day.

Mammoths

When warming came on Earth, she gave way. As the climate changed, very large mammals that adapted to extreme cold, such as the woolly rhinoceros, became extinct. Humans, once dependent on these "mega-mammals" as their main source of food, have switched to smaller animals and started harvesting plants to supplement their diet.

Evidence shows that around 10,800 years ago, the climate underwent a sharp cold turn that lasted several years. The glaciers did not return, but there were few animals and plants. As temperatures began to recover, animal populations grew and new species emerged that still exist today.

Currently, the evolution of animals continues, as new factors arise that force representatives of the animal world to adapt to changes in their environment.

The first animal on Earth was Dickinsonia - a kind of soft symmetrical cake, resembling either a feather or a palm branch.

The first animal on earth

Dickinsonia are famous creatures. They lived about 560 million years ago. But were they animals? The scientific world could not decide on this. Some considered the “cakes” to be plants, others to be mushrooms, others to be lichens, and some did not “hold” Dickinsonia as independent creatures at all, but believed that these were colonies of bacteria.

Individual representatives of the "mystery of nature" reached almost one and a half meters in diameter. But there were also small ones - a few millimeters.

The remains of two Dickinsonias were taken from a cliff located in Pomorie. The study showed that organic matter was preserved on the fossils. Scientists have determined their composition. And found a high concentration of cholesterol. It meant only one thing: Dickinsonia were animals. After all, only representatives of the animal world - cholesterol - produce it.

The current discovery of paleontologists indicates that the first animals appeared long before the so-called Cambrian explosion, which happened about 540 million years ago - then the living creatures suddenly bred. Dickinsonia "wound up" much earlier - at least 20 million years.

Dickinsonia led what is called a sedentary lifestyle. But their descendants soon moved on, growing legs. And this happened, as it turned out, also many millions of years earlier than it was commonly believed.

First land plants and animals

WHAT THE FIRST PLANTS LOOKED LIKE Once upon a time, our planet was inhabited by plants that had only a stem. They were attached to the ground with special outgrowths - rhizoids. These were the first plants to reach land. Scientists call them psilophytes. This is a Latin word. Translated, it means "naked plants". The psilophytes really looked "naked". They had only branching stems with outgrowths of balls in which spores were stored. They are very similar to the "alien plants" that are depicted in illustrations for fantastic stories.

Psilophytes became the first land plants, but they lived only in swampy areas, since they did not have a root, and they could not extract water and nutrients in the soil. Scientists believe that once these plants created huge carpets over the bare surface of the planet. There were both tiny plants and very large ones, taller than human growth.

THE FIRST ANIMALS ON EARTH The oldest traces of animal life on Earth date back a billion years, but the oldest fossils of the animals themselves are approximately 600 million years old and date back to the Vendian period. The first animals that appeared on Earth as a result of evolution were microscopically small and soft-bodied. They lived on the seabed or in bottom silt. Such creatures could hardly be petrified, and the only clue to unraveling the mystery of their existence is indirect traces, such as the remains of burrows or passages. But despite their tiny size, these most ancient animals were resilient and gave rise to the first known animals on Earth - the Ediacaran fauna.

The evolution of life on Earth began with the appearance of the first living being - about 3.7 billion years ago - and continues to this day. The similarity between all organisms indicates the presence of a common ancestor from which all other living beings descended.

ALL

Earth is a rotating ball of hot, molten rock covered with a thin outer crust. There are cracks in the crust called fault lines that divide it into large and small sections called plates.

plate movement

plate movement

The molten rock below the plates causes them to move at an average speed of 2 cm per year. As they move, they rub against each other.

When two plates collided, one could go under the other, and the resulting lowland eventually filled with water, forming a lake, sea or even an ocean. In the past, where two or more plates collided, their edges would rise to form mountain ranges.

It is believed that life on Earth originated about 4 billion years ago. But how it happened, we don't know for sure. Most scientists believe that from a mixture of simple substances - water, nitrogen, hydrogen, ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide - more complex compounds were formed. From them, the main “bricks of life” accidentally arose: nucleotides(elements of the hereditary substance) and amino acids.

Scholars debate where this first occurred. Where was that "chemical laboratory" in which it was possible to "create life"? Most believe that in the sky. At that time, the entire sky was covered with clouds. It was here that the most important organic compounds were formed - under the influence of electrical discharges and strong ultraviolet radiation from the Sun (at that time there was no barrier for it in the form of an ozone screen). Heavy rain showers washed these compounds into the ancient Ocean. There the evolution continued. This is one of the hypotheses. Other scientists, on the contrary, are looking for a solution to the mystery at the bottom of the Ocean, near hot volcanic springs. There, according to their ideas, substances necessary for the origin of life accumulated, and conditions were created in which chemical processes could take place.

It is not yet clear what prompted further development. Biologists believe that on the cooling Earth, hereditary matter and proteins were formed from simple chemicals. What happened next?

Why did the “bricks of life” themselves line up in such a way that they created organisms that began to absorb nutrients and multiply? For now, we can only speculate about this.

In some ways, all scientists agree: life originated in water, the first living organisms were the most primitive, and they improved very slowly. At some point, one of these organisms was enveloped by a thin membrane - this is how the "primary cells" appeared. Gradually, the abilities of the cells multiplied. Some have reached the highest stage of development: they have learned to hide the hereditary substance in a special cell nucleus. Then some cells began to absorb other, smaller ones. The captives, caught inside the host cell, "worked" for him. These complex cells - they are called eukaryotes - subsequently created cell colonies. From such colonies, multicellular organisms developed: plants, animals, and, finally, humans.

Life in the Earth

4600 million years ago the planet Earth was formed. At first it was hot and dry. It took a very long time before seas and oceans formed on it.

3500 million years ago, the first living beings appeared in the oceans. They were so small that they could not be seen, like modern microbes that cause disease in humans.

Simple animals such as jellyfish and corals, as well as simple plants such as algae, lived 700 million years ago.

400 Millions of years ago, the first land plants appeared on Earth. Panzer fish and other animals lived in the seas.

340 million years ago, insects and amphibians lived in swampy forests covering most of the land.

230 Dinosaurs lived on Earth millions of years ago. They were terrestrial reptiles. There were also flying and aquatic reptiles.

The first mammals were very small and lived 225 million years ago.

The first monkeys lived 35 million years ago. Monkeys like the gorilla are closely related to humans.

The first human fossils found in Africa 2 million years.

fossils

Animals and plants that had died long ago were mostly decomposed. But sometimes their hard parts, such as bones, are preserved as fossils in rocks.

Fossils can be used to judge what plants and animals lived on Earth many years ago. Some of them, such as corals and sea lilies, still live on Earth.

But many more species, such as ammonites, unfortunately died. If all members of one species of living beings have died, then this species is called extinct or extinct.

Where plants and animals live today

Most of the land on Earth was once united. As the plates moved, seas, oceans, and mountains formed. This did not give animals the opportunity to move all over the earth. That is why different living beings have appeared in different places today.

Australia separated from Antarctica 55 million years ago. And now animals like kangaroos, wombats and platypuses live only in Australia.

Wombats- digging forest animals. They are a little bigger than badgers

Some animals give birth to very tiny cubs, which are in their mother's pocket for a long time. These are marsupials, such as kangaroos.

There are many camel-like animals all over the world. Their ancestors were widespread on earth when it was one.
When the ocean appeared, they separated. Over millions of years, each group of animals evolved separately.

The very first animals

» Extinct animals » The very first animals

Life has existed on our planet for at least 3.8 billion years. The stone chronicle of the Earth has preserved for us many traces of the existence of its former inhabitants. People from ancient times find them here and there. Perhaps the tales of dragons, giants and other monsters appeared for a reason, but thanks to the amazing finds of the bones of giant dinosaurs, mammoths, whales. Bones, shells, shells are the most widespread remains of extinct creatures. Usually they are to some extent mineralized, that is, turned into stone, which is why they are called fossils. To refer to this phenomenon, the Latin word "fossils" is also used, which means "fossils".

Who are these animals?

Animals are multicellular organisms that feed on other organisms, and as such, they usually have digestive organs. In addition, animals, unlike plants and fungi, are mobile, since food must be sought, and sometimes even caught and overtaken.

And in order to search, catch and catch up, in addition to mobility, sensory organs are also needed - in order to see prey, catch its smells and taste it.

When did animals appear?

There were no animals among the first inhabitants of the Earth! For at least 3 billion years our planet was inhabited only by microorganisms, mainly bacteria. Scientists call this time the cryptozoic, the era of hidden life. The first multicellular organisms appeared about 1 billion years ago, but there were probably no animals among them yet. However, already 800 million years ago they undoubtedly existed: in rocks of this age, the most ancient trace paths were found - evidence of the movement of organisms along the bottom of ancient seas.

Pages:

The very first living thing on Earth

First life

It's hard to believe, but on planet Earth there are still those very first organisms that played the greatest role in the further evolution of living nature.

Scientists knew about them as early as the 18th century, but only in the 30s. In the 20th century, the veil of origin and the mystery of their formation were opened. We are talking about stromatolites.

Stromalites

Stromatolite (from the Greek stromatos - bedding, lithos - stone) is nothing more than a dense layered formation in the strata of limestones and dolomites, resulting from the vital activity of colonies of blue-green algae and other microorganisms. Stromatolites have been found on Earth since the Proterozoic, and today it has been established that the most ancient representatives can boast an age of about 3.5 billion years. Moreover, these same representatives have not changed a bit since those times.

In the 30s. The 20th century witnessed one of the most remarkable events in classical biology. On the littoral of Shark Bay (Australia) and on the Atlantic coast of the Bahamas, small reef structures of a previously unknown type were found. Upon closer examination, these turned out to be modern stromatolites!

The result of the activity of cyanobacteria

It was then that it became clear that stromatolite is formed as a result of the vital activity of a unique prokaryotic creature - a cyanobacterial mat. The cyanobacterial mat is a multilayer "carpet", up to 2 cm thick. It consists of cyanobacteria and other microorganisms. But in addition to the fact that the mat consists of layers, they perform different, but strictly distributed, functions. Thus, it is a full-fledged living organism, each part of which clearly performs its functions, and further research has shown that the cyanobacterial mat is one of the most balanced ecosystems in nature.

Stromatolites live in extreme conditions - in caves, very salty lakes and valleys, as well as in hot springs. And this is not surprising, because the conditions of life on Earth were just such, extreme, 3.5 billion years ago. And only thanks to the photosynthetic work of cyanobacteria, the modern atmosphere is rich in oxygen. Here they are amazing, the first living organisms!

Victoria Visicheva, Samogo.Net

Ancient animals of the Earth

The ancient animals of the Earth are animals that died out for some natural reason before the appearance of man. Sometimes they are called prehistoric animals. Some of them continued to exist even after the appearance of mankind and died out already through our fault.

The dodo or dodo is a large flightless bird. Its modern relatives are birds of the pigeon order. At one time, dodos densely populated the island of Mauritius, ate plant foods, and the only egg was laid by the female dodo directly on the ground. Dodos disappeared only in the 17th century due to the fault of people and the animals they brought to the island.

The most famous ancient animals on Earth are mammoths. This species of elephant lived on our planet about 1.5 million years ago. Judging by the fossil remains, mammoths were larger than their modern relatives and their body was covered with wool. Mammoths ate exclusively plant foods and were desirable prey for primitive hunters. Why mammoths died out, there is no consensus.

Smilodon or saber-toothed tiger disappeared from the surface of our planet more than 2 million years ago.

Smilodons were larger than modern tigers, and the long saber-shaped fangs on the upper jaw allowed it to hunt thick-skinned rhinos and elephants.

The giant ground sloth Megatherium lived about 2 million years ago on the American continent. The length of his body was 6 meters. Megatherium fed on the shoots of young trees, bending them to the ground with long front paws equipped with curved claws.

Another large flightless bird of antiquity with strong three-meter hind limbs is the moa. Moas lived in New Zealand until the 17th century and were completely destroyed by people.

The epiornis bird, also not flying, weighed up to 450 kilograms, and its height reached 3 meters. According to the assumption, the eggs of these birds could weigh up to 10 kilograms. Even in the 19th century, epiornis could be seen in Madagascar, but due to deforestation and ruthless extermination, today these ancient birds have completely died out.

Chalicotherium is an ancient animal of the Earth with a horse's head and claws instead of hooves. Scientists attribute it to the detachment of artiodactyls. In an attempt to get high-lying plant food, chalicotherium on powerful hind limbs could reach up to 5 meters in height.

The ancient animal of the Earth, which, probably, was lucky to survive to this day, is the marsupial wolf. This ancient mammal has a body length of up to 1 meter, plus a half-meter tail length. He lived in Australia, but by the time the Europeans discovered the mainland, he had survived only on the island of Tasmania (sometimes the wolf is called Tasmanian). Since the beginning of the 20th century, no one has seen a marsupial wolf alive, but it is, nevertheless, listed in the Red Book.

And the most mysterious and numerous ancient animals of the Earth are dinosaurs. Their name is translated as "terrible lizards." For 200 million years, they inhabited the earth's land almost everywhere and mysteriously died 60 million years ago. The most likely reason for the extinction of dinosaurs is the collision of our planet with an asteroid, as a result of which the Earth's climate has changed in a detrimental way for dinosaurs.

Humanity owes the emergence of natural diversity on Earth to billions of years of revolution. Modern geologists and paleontologists have discovered turning points in the development of life on our planet.

1. The oldest people - Omo

Humans can now trace their lineage back hundreds of thousands of years. Two skulls, named Omo 1 and Omo 2, which were discovered in Ethiopia in 1967, are 195,000 years old, making them the earliest anatomically modern humans discovered so far. Scientists now think that Homo sapiens began to evolve 200,000 years ago.

However, this is still a matter of controversy, as evidence of cultural development - found musical instruments, needles and jewelry - dates back only 50,000 years. Complex compound tools such as harpoons also appeared around this time. Therefore, no one can answer the simple question: if modern humans appeared 200,000 years ago, then why did it take them as much as 150,000 years to develop anything resembling a culture.

2. The most ancient bird - protoavis

Today, everyone knows that birds evolved from dinosaurs, and also that many dinosaurs were actually covered in feathers. As a result, the question "which bird is the most ancient" should essentially be reformulated into "at what point can dinosaurs be considered birds."

For a long time, paleontologists considered the Archeopteryx to be the most ancient birds, but today an even more ancient candidate for the title of the first bird has appeared. Protoavis lived about 220 million years ago, 80 million years earlier than any of its competitors. The fossil was found in Texas by paleontologist Sankar Chatterjee, who claims that Protoavis is actually closer to modern birds than Archeopteryx.

3. The first types of creatures that began to walk on earth - Tiktaalik and pneumodesmus

Tiktaalik, a duck-billed creature that lived in the Devonian period, was a cross between a fish, a frog and an alligator. It is believed that it first got out of the water on land 375 million years ago. Discovered in Canada in 2004, this species is considered an important transitional link between aquatic vertebrates and the first land animals. Tiktaalik can also boast of ribs that are able to support its body out of water, a light, mobile neck and eyes on the top of the head, like a crocodile. The centipede pneumodesmus lived about 428 million years ago. The 1 centimeter-sized creature was actually the first creature to live permanently on earth and breathe air.

4. The oldest reptile - Gilon

Reptiles were the first vertebrates that could live on earth. The lizard-like creature, the Gilon, which is only 20 centimeters long, is believed by scientists to be the oldest reptile. Hylonomas, which appear to have been insectivorous, arose about 310 million years ago. The surviving fossil of this creature was discovered in 1860 inside a tree trunk in Nova Scotia.

5. The oldest creature that can fly - rhinognath

Flying as a primary means of locomotion requires a complex body structure (low body weight but strong skeleton) as well as powerful wing muscles. The first creature that was able to fly is actually the oldest known insect. Rhyniognatha hirsti is a tiny insect that lived about 400 million years ago. The first evidence of the existence of this insect was discovered in 1928 in the Devonian rocks.

6. The first flowering plant - potomacapnos and amborella

People tend to associate plants with flowers, but flowers are actually relatively recent. Before flowers appeared, plants reproduced with spores for hundreds of millions of years. In fact, scientists don't even know why flowers came into being, as they are very delicate and whimsical, and also require a huge amount of energy, which theoretically could be put to a much more rational use.

These incomprehensible circumstances led Darwin to describe the growth of flowers as a "terrible secret." The oldest known fossil flowering plants date back to the Cretaceous, between 115 and 125 million years ago. Some of the oldest flowers are potomacapnos, which surprisingly resembles a modern poppy, as well as amborella, which was found on the island of New Caledonia. Everything points to the fact that flowers did not develop slowly, but suddenly arose in fact in their modern form.

7. The most ancient mammal - Hadrocodium

The oldest known mammal resembled a small mouse or a modern shrew. The length of the hadrocodium, the remains of which were found in China in 2001, was about 3.5 centimeters, and the animal weighed only 2 grams. Most likely, he led a lifestyle similar to the modern shrew, since his teeth were special fangs for grinding insects. The Hadrocodium lived about 195 million years ago, long before some of the most famous dinosaurs, including Stegosaurus, Diplodocus, and Tyrannosaurus Rex.

8. The first tree is vattieza

Trees have played (and still play) a crucial role in shaping the Earth's atmosphere. Without them, carbon dioxide would not turn into oxygen, and the planet would soon become lifeless. The first forests dramatically changed the Earth's ecosystem. Thus, the appearance of trees can be considered one of the most important evolutionary breakthroughs in history.

Currently, the oldest known tree is a 397-million-year-old species that has been named vattieza. The leaves of this fern-like plant resembled a palm, and the tree itself reached a height of 10 meters. Wattiesa arose 140 million years before the dinosaurs. The plant reproduced by spores similar to modern ferns and mushrooms.

9. The oldest dinosaur - nyasasaurus

Dinosaurs began to reign on Earth after the Permian mass extinction, which occurred about 250 million years ago and destroyed about 90 percent of all species on the planet, including 95 percent of marine life, and most of the planet's trees. After that, dinosaurs appeared in the Triassic.

The oldest dinosaur known to date is Nyasasaurus, whose bones were discovered in Tanzania in 1930. Until now, scientists have no idea whether he was a predator or herbivore, and he also walked on two legs or four. The height of the nyasasaurus was only 1 meter, and the weight was 18-60 kg.

10 Oldest Life Form

What is the oldest form of life known to science? This is a rather difficult question, since often the fossils are so ancient that their age is difficult to accurately determine. For example, rocks discovered near the Pilbara region in Australia contained microbes nearly 3.5 billion years old. However, some scientists believe that such Precambrian organ-walled microfossils are actually a strange form of minerals that arose under special hydrothermal conditions. In other words, they are not alive.