Early Life Forms - 1

EARLY LIFE
FORMS
4.5 BILLION YEARS – estimated
Earth’s age, no fossils have been
found in the oldest rocks.
3.8 billion years old. The oldest

fossils that have been discovered
were found in 3.5 billion year-old
rocks that were once sediments on
the oceans floor.
The tiny fossils that were found in
these ancient rocks were bacteria.
Two groups of
Bacteria:
According to the
composition of their cell
walls and cell membranes
According to the structure
of their proteins.
EUBACTERIA (True Bacteria) – 1st
group of bacteria
Most living bacteria, including those that
cause disease and decay.
ARCHAEBACTERIA (Ancient
Bacteria) – this type of bacteria are
rare
Theyto found.
are found mainly in hostile environments
where conditions resemble those of early Earth
(e.g., salty lakes,, hot springs, swamps, and the
ocean floor)
CYANOBACTERIA (Photosynthetic
Bacteria) -
Evolved as the carried out photosynthesis,
oxygen gas is released into the oceans..
After hundreds of millions of years, when
the oceans had soaked up all the oxygen
they could hold, the oxygen began to
bubble out of the water and into the air.
Over the billions of years that followed,
more oxygen was added to the air,
eventually leading to the present
composition of the atmosphere.
Life was only able to move onto land
because of a change in the atmosphere.
As Cyanobacteria added oxygen gas to the
atmosphere, large amounts of oxygen
began to diffuse into the upper
atmosphere, producing ozone. Before the
ozone was formed, all life was restricted to
the oceans. But due the new ozone layer
that acted like a shield which blocked
ultraviolet radiation, the radiation levels on
Earth’s surface went down to a level that
allowed life to move onto dry land.
More complex life –forms appeared in
the fossil record . These organisms,
Eukaryote
known as Were much larger than
s,
and prokaryotes,
they contained a central and a
complicated internal structure.
 Over the past 1.5 billion years,
eukaryotic cells have evolved into
organisms that are composed of many
cells. It is believed that the first single-
celled eukaryote evolved around 2BYA
and is the ancestor of all plants and
By about 400 million years ago,
enough ozone had formed in the
atmosphere to make Earth’s
surface safe place to live in.
The first living thing to populate the
surface of the land were plants and
fungi. The solution to the challenge of
living on dry land was a unique
mutualistic partnership between plants
and fungi called mycorrhizae
Plants provide
foods to the fungi
while the fungi
provide nutrients
obtained from
organic matter to
the plants.
Mycorrhizae are
closed associations
between the roots of
the plants and fungi.
Fungi actually grow
on or into the plant
root and then branch
out into rock or soil.
 Fossil records reveal that plants covered
the surface of Earth within 80 million
years of their initial invasion. Animals
soon followed of plants onto land.
ARTHROPO
DS 
First animals leave in water.
They are animals with hard body
covering and jointed legs.
Scorpion - The first
arthropods to live on
land. They are
carnivorous relatives
of spiders with two
large pincers on their
front legs and
venomous stinger at
the end of their tails.
Major Biological Events since
4.5 BYAEVENTS
MAJOR TIME
Rapid diversification of animals; plants and fungi 0.5 BYA
appear ; origin of humans (about two millions years
ago)
Earliest animals; first multicellular 1.0 BYA
organisms;
Diverse protest
First Eukaryotes 1.5 BYA
Diverse and abundant bacteria 2.0 BYA
Photosynthesis begin 2.5 BYA
Bacteria diversify 3.0 BYA
First bacteria appear 3.5 BYA
Oldest rocks 4.0 BYA

In the last 570 million years, there has been
a rapid diversification of multicellular life.
Plants, fungi, and most major animal groups
have evolved in this relatively short period
of time.
From the scorpions, a unique class of
terrestrial arthropods soon evolved: insects
today, there are more 200 million insects
alive at any one time for each person on
Earth. In addition, more than 70 percent of
the animal species discovered are insects.
Based on the fossils records and studies,
insects were the first animals to develop
wings.
More complex animals began to evolve.
Fossils showed that worm-like animals, the
earliest known animals with notochord,
existed.
The notochord however, exist only for a
short time during the embryonic
development and is replaced by the
vertebral column or backbone.

The earliest vertebrates
were jawless fishes with
bony skeletons. These
small fishes appear too
have fed in a head-down
position with their fins
helping to keep them
upright while they suck
up organic particles from
the bottom.
For over 100 million years,
jawless fishes were only
vertebrates. Today, the
jawless fishes are the eel-like,
parasitic lampreys, and the
scavenging hagfishes.
Eventually, the jawed fishes
evolved approximately 400
MYA. These are now the
sharks and bony fishes we

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EARLY LIFE

3.8 billion years old. The oldest

Diverse and abundant bacteria 2.0 BYA

Photosynthesis begin 2.5 BYA

Bacteria diversify 3.0 BYA

First bacteria appear 3.5 BYA

Oldest rocks 4.0 BYA

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