Diatoms Emerge
Diatoms began as tiny glass-shelled “silica” algae, with round centric forms appearing first and elongated pennate forms later adding direction, symmetry, and movement to the microscopic world.
Plants
Triassic–Jurassic Extinction: Volcanoes Open the Age of Dinosaurs
The Triassic–Jurassic extinction cleared ecological space for dinosaurs to become the dominant land animals of the Jurassic.
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Oceans Lose Their Breath
The Devonian extinction shows that evolution can be reshaped not by one sudden blow, but by a long collapse in ocean health.
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Ordovician–Silurian Extinction: Ice Strikes the Seas
The Ordovician–Silurian extinction shows how climate change can reshape evolution by collapsing old ecosystems and opening space for new life.
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Snowball Earth: When Ice Reached the Equator
Snowball Earth was a time when our planet may have frozen nearly from pole to pole, testing life and setting the stage for later biological change.
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The K-Pg Extinction
Before, during, and after the K–Pg extinction: a thriving Late Cretaceous world of dinosaurs, pterosaurs, birds, and flowering plants gives way to the asteroid strike and global collapse that ended the age of non-avian dinosaurs.
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The P-T Extinction
The Permian-Triassic extinction was not just the end of many species. It was a planetary reset that destroyed the old synapsid-dominated world and opened the door for the archosaur line that would later give rise to dinosaurs.
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Cenozoic Era: Age of Mammals & Birds
The Cenozoic era starts with the K–Pg extinction 66 million years ago. That event marks the sudden end of the reign of dinosaurs and the rise of mammals and birds.
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Mesozoic Era: Age of Dinosaurs
The Mesozoic era starts with the end-Permian mass extinction 252 million years ago. Dinosaurs ruled over all, including us. It ends the reign of dinosaurs with the K–Pg extinction 66 million years ago.
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Paleozoic Era: The Age of Synapsids
The start of the Paleozoic era is marked by burrowing life 538.8 million years ago. The era includes the dominant rise of our ancestors. It ends 252 million years ago with the end-Permian mass extinction, a volcanic cascade global warming event.
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Archaea Diverge
Archaea are a primary branch of early life, and eukaryotes emerged from within this archaeal lineage.
Bacterial Endosymbiosis: Origin of Eukaryotes
About 2 billion years ago, bacteria are added to cells and that group leads to eukaryotes. You are a walking chimera ecosystem made of an Archaea host and trillions of Bacterial power-plants.
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Fungal Underground Alliance
About 450 million years ago, fungi and plants have a rich dirt root alliance. Plants gave sugars, fungi gave phosphorus and minerals.
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LECA: Likely Sexual Reproduction
LECA is the Last Eukaryotic Common Ancestor. LECA reproduced sexually pushing the mixing of DNA back before 1.75 billion years ago.
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Bikonts: Plant Ancestors Split Off Again (Front-Pull Pioneers)
About 1.55 billion years ago, bikonts evolved two flagella to pull themselves forward. These tiny rowboats led to all plants and is not an animal-fungi ancestor.
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Conifers branch off
Conifers branched about 300 million years ago with their seed-bearing cones (woody or modified), enabling them to thrive on dry land.
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Redwood Lineage Emerges
The modern coast redwood species is about 25 million years old, but its lineage reaches back roughly 100 million years into the age of dinosaurs.
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Ginkgo biloba — A Living Fossil in My Backyard
A lineage can survive for hundreds of millions of years while remaining morphologically recognizable. Living fossil is poetic, but scientifically the ginkgo represents a relict lineage and a morphologically conservative lineage.
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Red-Green Algae Ancestors Split
Around 1.5 billion years ago, red and green algae diverged, establishing two major photosynthetic lineages from which all modern plants ultimately descend.
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The First Flowers
Pollen evolved about 350 million years ago, by 130 million years ago, flowers improved pollination by attracting partners like bees.