Back to "Choose Life"
Adaption of Life on the Earth
Scientists believe that fish came before reptiles and birds, because there have
been no bird/reptile fossils found before 220 million years ago. They also
believe that reptiles came before birds, because the earliest bird fossil is
150 million years old, and the oldest reptile fossil is 220 million years ago.
However, the first land organism fossil is about 400-500 million years old.
When there is a slight change in the environment around an
organism, it will adapt. For example, a deep-water fish might have huge eyes,
or a bird might develop a hooked beak to rip meat, or a moth might develop speckled wigs to
blend in with its surroundings. These adaptations then become characteristics,
and when a fossil is found having any of the above, (fish's eyes); paleontologists
would know that where ever it was found once was a deep ocean, because of the
large eyes. Some humans do not adapt to the chemical in the air and all around
us, which results in MCS, environmental illness, or gulf war syndrome. These
adaptations allowed the ocean organisms to go out of water, as long as they
stayed nearby. After a few million years, they had adapted to live with
less water and could go farther from the sea, and plants developed
root-systems. However, trilobites, ammonites, and dinosaurs all have something
is common: they're extinct. Extinction happens when the ecology around the
organism can't support life, which may happen to humans in the future of we aren’t
careful in conserving our resources. Many million years after that, flying species
appeared. A species is many similar organisms that can breed to
create another organism of the same characteristics of the parents. For
scientists to classify these species, they use the similarities that every
"thing" has is common; all pine trees have needle-like leaves, all
hammer-headed sharks have "hammer heads", and all birds have
feathers.
There are SO many different environments in the world today,
if you compared them all to the few back when the earth was young, you might
think that it was comparing two different planets. Adaptations allowed
organisms to create diversity on the land and in the sea: for example, once
forests where established, there was more sheltered areas. The "new" forests
then diverged into rain forests, pine forests, tropical rain forests, cedar
forests; etc. They also provided habitats for animals and insects; etc. some
animals adapt very slowly, like ants, while others, like fruit flies adapt very
fast.
Below is a chart that shows the extinction and the branching off of life.