Human

Human – Masterpiece of the universal creation

Life and evolution to humans from a single cellular organism is a creative masterpiece of the universe. The flowing energy of the universe manifests in various visual forms and diversity.

In any form of complicated end results, one has to grasp the simple reality – A single source of origin and connectivity to each other.

The evolution of life

The of life on earth.

Scientists measure how different species are developed at a molecular level and the development timeline.

3.8 billion years ago

This is the timeline assumed to have started life on earth. The first life may have developed in undersea alkaline vents and is most likely based on RNA.

3.5 billion years ago

The oldest fossils of single-celled organisms

3.46 billion years ago

Some single-celled organisms may be feeding on methane.

3.4 billion years ago

Rock formations in Western Australia and fossilized microbes.

3 billion years ago

Viruses are present this time, but they may be as old as life itself.

2.4 billion years ago

The “ great oxidation event “ led to the building up of oxygen in the atmosphere as waste produced by cyanobacteria. Dissolved oxygen makes the iron in the oceans “ rust” and sink to the sea floor, forming striking banded iron formations.

2.3 billion years ago

The earth freezes over in the first 2 snowball earth” likely a result of a lack of volcanic activity. When the eventually melts, it directly leads to more oxygen being released into the atmosphere.

2.15 billion years ago

This is when there is the first fossil evidence of cyanobacteria and of photosynthesis: the ability to take in sunlight and carbon dioxide and obtain energy, releasing oxygen as a by-product.

2 million years ago

Eukaryotic cells known as organelles come into existence. In organelles, one key component is the nucleus. The nucleus is the control center of the cell in which the genes are stored in the form of DNA. Eukaryotic cells evolve when one cell engulfs another which is called endosymbiosis.

1.5 billion years ago

The eukaryotes divide into three groups; the ancestors of modern plants, fungi, and animals divide into separate lineages.

900 million years ago

The first multicellular life develops around this time. One possibility is that single-celled organisms go through a stage similar to that of modern choanoflagellates; single-celled creatures that form colonies consisting of many individuals.

800 million years ago

The early multicellular animals undergo their first splits. They divide into Eumetazova.

Around 20 million years later, a small group called the placozoa breaks away from the rest of the Eumetazoa. Placozoa is thin plate-like creatures about 1mm across and consists of only three layers of cells. It was believed to be the last common ancestor of all animals.

770 million years ago

The planet freezes over another “snowball earth.”

730 million years ago

The comb jellies (ctenophores) split from the other multicellular animals. These organisms relied on water flowing through their body cavities to acquire oxygen and food.

680 million years ago

The ancestor of cnidarians breaks away from the other animals.

630 million years ago

Around this time some animals evolved bilateral symmetry for the first time; they now have a defined top and bottom and front/ back. Small s worms called Acoela are the closest beings related to the first-ever bilateral animal. The first bilateral animal was a type of worm that dates from around 600 million years ago.

590 million years ago

The Bilateria, the animals with bilateral symmetry underwent a profound evolutionary split. They divide into protostomes and deuterostomes. The deuterostomes eventually include all the vertebrates, plus an outlier group called the Ambulacraria. The protostomes become all the arthropods ( insects, spiders, crabs, shrimps etc) , various types of worms, and microscopic rotifers.

580 million years ago

The earliest known fossils of cnidarians, the group that includes jellyfish, sea anemones, and corals, date to around this time.

575 million years ago

Strange life forms known as the Ediacarans appear around this time and persist for about 33 million years.

570 million years ago

A small group breaks away from the main group of the deuterostomes. known as the Ambulacraria. This group became the Echinoderms (starfish, brittle stars) and two worm-like families called the hemichordates and Xenoturbellida.

Echinoderm, the sea Lily is the missing link between vertebrae (animals with a backbone) and invertebrates ( without a backbone) a split that occurred during that time.

565 million years ago

Fossilized animal trails suggest that some animals are moving under their own power.

540 million years ago

As first chordates, animals with backbone emerge among the deuterostomes. The sea squirts (tunicates) begin their history as tadpole-like chordates but metamorphose partway through their lives into bottom-dwelling filter feeders that look rather like a bag of seawater anchored to a rock. Their larvae still look like tadpoles.

535 million years ago

The Cambrian explosion begins, with new body layouts appearing on the scene, though the seeming rapidity of the appearance of new life forms may simply be an illusion caused by a lack of older fossils.

530 million years ago

The first true vertebrates – an animal with a backbone – appear. It probably evolves from a jawless fish that has a notochord, a stiff rod of cartilage, instead of a true backbone. The first vertebrate is like a lamprey, hagfish lancelet.

Around the same time, the first fossils of trilobites appear. These inter vertebrates which look like woodlice and could grow 70cm in length proliferate in oceans for the next 200 million years.

520 million years ago

Conodonts, and other vertebrae appear at this time. They looked like eels.

500 million years ago

Fossil evidence shows that animals were exploring the lands at that time. The first animals to do so were euthycarcinoids- missing link between insects and crustaceans. Nectocaris pteryx thought to be the oldest known ancestor of the cephalopods – the group that included squid, lives around this time.

489 million years ago

The Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event begins, leading to a great increase in diversity. Within each group of animals and plants.

465 million years ago

Plants begin colonizing the land.

460 million years ago

Fish split into two major groups: bony fish and cartilaginous fish. The cartilaginous fish, as the name implies, have skeletons made of cartilage rather than harder bone. They include all the sharks, skates, and rays.

440 million years ago

The bony fish split into two major groups: the lobe-finned fish with bones in their fleshy fins and the ray-finned fish. The lobe-finned fish eventually give rise to amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. The ray-finned fish thrive and give rise to most fish species living today.

425 million years ago

The Coelacanth, the most famous living fossil has not changed for million years = split from the rest of the lobe-finned fish.

417 million years ago

Lungfish, a legendary living fossil, follow the coelacanth by splitting from the other lobe–finned fish. They are unambiguously fish, complete with gills, lungfish have a pair of relatively sophisticated lungs, which are divided into numerous smaller air sacs to increase their surface area. These allow them to breathe out of the water and thus survive when the water they live in dries out.

400 million years ago

The oldest known insect.

397 million years ago

The first four-legged animals or tetrapods, evolve from intermediate species such as Tiktaalik, living in shallow freshwater habitats. The tetrapods go on to conquer the land and give rise to all amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals.

385 million years ago

The oldest fossilized tree dates from this period.

375 million years ago

Tiktaalik an intermediate between fish and four–legged land animals, lives around this time. The fleshy fins of the lungfish ancestors are evolving into limbs.

340 million years ago

The first major split occurs in the tetrapods, with the amphibians branching off from the others.

330 million years ago

Within the remaining tetrapods, the sauropsids and synapsids split from one another. The sauropsids include all modern reptiles include all the modern reptiles including dinosaurs and birds. The first synapsids are also reptiles but had distinctive jaws. They were called mammal-like reptiles.

320 to 250 million years ago

The pelycosaurs , the major group of synapsid animals dominated the land. The most famous example is Dimetrodon, a large predatory reptile with a snail on its back.

275 to 100million years ago

The Therapsids evolve alongside pelycosaurs. The therapsids survive until the early Cretaceous 100 million years ago. A group of them called cyanodonuts developed dog-like teeth and evolved into the first mammals.

250 million years ago

The Permian period ended with the greatest mass extinction in earth’s history. This wiped out many species including the last of the trilobites.

When the ecosystem recovers, sauropsids take over in the form of dinosaurs. The ancestors of mammals survive as small, nocturnal creatures.

In the oceans, the ammonites evolve around this time. Several groups of reptiles colonize the seas, developing in to the great marine reptiles of the dinosaur era.

210 million years ago

Bird-like footprints fossils called Protoavis suggest that some early dinosaurs are already evolving into birds at this time.

200 million years ago

When the Triassic period comes to an end, another mass extinction strikes, paving the way for the dinosaurs to take over from their sauropsid cousins.

At the same time proto- mammals evolve warm bloodedness – ability to maintain the internal temperature.

180 million years ago

The first split occurs in the early mammal population. The monotremes. a group of animals that lay eggs rather than giving birth to live young break apart from others. Few monotremes survive till today – duck-billed platypus and the echidnas.

168 million years ago

A half – feathered, flightless dinosaur called Epidexipteryx , which must have a been a step towards a birds lives in China.

150 million years ago

Archacopteryx, the first bird lives in Europe.

140 million years ago

Around this time, placental mammals split from their cousins the marsupials. These mammals give birth when their young are very small , but nourish them in a pouch for first few weeks or months of their lives.

Majority of modern marsupials live in Australia.

131 million years ago

Eoconfuciusornis, a bird rather more advanced than Archaeopteryx lives in China.

130 million years ago

The first flowering plants emerge, following period of rapid evolution.

105 – 85 million years ago

During this ear placental mammals split in to four major groups:

The laurasiatheres (hoofed mammals/ whales/ bats and dogs)

Euarchontoglires – primates, rodents

Xenathra – anteaters and armadillos

Afrotheres – elephants , aardvarks

100 million years ago

The Cretaceous dinosaurs reach their peak in size. The giant sauropod Argentinosaurus , believed to be the largest land animal in Earth’ s history.

93 million years ago

The oceans become starved of oxygen possibly due to a huge underwater volcanic eruption. 27% of marine invertebrates were wiped out.

75 million years ago

The ancestors of the modern primates split from the ancestors of modern rodents and lagomorphs (rabbits/ hares and pikas) .

70 million years ago

Grasses evolve and vast open grasslands appear.

65 million years ago

The Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction wiped out many species including all the giant reptiles: the dinosaurs, petrosaurs, ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs. The ammonites are wiped out. This cleared the path for the mammals.

63 million years ago

The primates split into two groups as the haplorrhines (dry-nosed primates) and the strepsirrhines (wet nosed primates). The strepsirrhines become the modern lemurs and aye ayes.

Haplorrhines develop into monkeys and apes and humans.

58 million years ago

The tarsier, a primate with enormous eyes splits from the rest of the haplorrhines .

55 million years ago

The Palaeocene / Eocene extinction. A sudden rise in greenhouse gases created soaring temperatures and transformed the planet , wiping out many species in the depth of sea .

50 million years ago

Artiodactyles looked like a cross between a wolf and a tapir evolved into whales.

48 million years ago

Indohyus ancestor of whales and dolphins lives in India.

47 million years ago

Famous fossilised primate known as “Ida” lives in Northern Europe. early whales called protocetids live in shallow seas returning to land to give birth.