Not the oldest thing currently living, but the oldest known type of lifeform.
Thanks,
Rob
Not the oldest thing currently living, but the oldest known type of lifeform.
Thanks,
Rob
How’s a 9,550 year-old tree?
Source: CNN - October 2000
No, not something that is currently alive, but the oldest known organism we can classify. It can be extinct.
Thanks,
Rob
He’s asking what is the EARLIEST lifeform we know about, if I’m understanding him correctly.
I wonder what kind of awesome senior discount a 250 million year old bacterium gets?
I know you weren’t necessarily looking for something still living, I just thought 9,550 was a reasonable start-point for old things. Clearly, I was a bit short of the mark.
ETA: Oh! Thanks, JayJay, I was reading the question as “what’s the longest lifespan any organism has ever had?”
In other words what is the first life form known to exit on this planet?
Scientists have no idea for sure, but they’re guessing that the microbes that live inside the Earth’s crust have lifetimes on the order of 100,000 years. Everything those microbes do is eternally slow.
The first know species, yes.
Unfortunately, in the spirit of “Thread’s title dictates its topic”, the OP’s actual intent will be ignored
And are now apparently working at the DMV.
The earliest life we have fossil record of are the Apex Cherts, these are bacteria that lived 3.5 billion years ago.
Could I have a cite on what you’re talking about?
The cherts themselves are somewhat metamorpohosed sedimentary rocks. They contain microscopic evidence of, and possibly were laid down by, the bacteria in question.
Somewhat younger but still earlier pre-Cambrian in date are the earliest reef-building cyanophytes (FKA blue-green algae, something of a misnomer). Google the term stromatolite for some interesting background on these early prokaryotes, which still exist and build reefs, albeit in very restricted areas these days.
There’s some evidence to suggest that the iron-bearing sediments of the Minnesota, Upper Peninsula, and Wisconsin “ranges” were laid down by another group of bacteria, now probably extinct.
Probably the earliest evidence of eukaryotes, creatures with a normal nucleated organelle-bearing cell, are the acritarchs, from about one billion years ago forward.
The earliest macrobiotes (plants or animals visible to the naked eye) would be from Vendian times, ca. 700 million years ago, just prior to the Cambrian. In addition to the relatively famous Ediacara fauna, there are several deposits in Russia near the Urals (the period name derives from one such deposit).
I read somewhere that when cyanophytes first appeared, they swept all life before them. Are the chert microfossils examples of these organisms? Do we know anything about them other than they existed? Do we know when they first appeared? I also understand that the cataclysm that produced the moon would have obliterated any life that existed on earth prior to that time. Do we have any evidence that anything existed then?
Thanks,
Rob
Nearly microscopic.