Humanity owes the emergence of natural diversity on Earth to billions of years of revolution. Modern geologists and paleontologists have discovered turning points in the development of life on our planet.

1. The oldest people - Omo


Humans can now trace their lineage back hundreds of thousands of years. Two skulls, named Omo 1 and Omo 2, which were discovered in Ethiopia in 1967, are 195,000 years old, making them the earliest anatomically modern humans discovered so far. Scientists now think that Homo sapiens began to evolve 200,000 years ago.

However, there is still controversy about this, since the evidence cultural development- found musical instruments, needles and jewelry - date back only 50,000 years. Complex compound tools such as harpoons also appeared around this time. Therefore, no one can answer the simple question: if modern people appeared 200,000 years ago, why did it take them as much as 150,000 years to develop anything resembling a culture.

2. The most ancient bird - protoavis


Today, everyone knows that birds evolved from dinosaurs, and also that many dinosaurs were actually covered in feathers. As a result, the question "which bird is the most ancient" should essentially be reformulated into "at what point can dinosaurs be considered birds."

For a long time, paleontologists considered the Archeopteryx to be the most ancient birds, but today an even more ancient candidate for the title of the first bird has appeared. Protoavis lived about 220 million years ago, 80 million years earlier than any of its competitors. The fossil was found in Texas by paleontologist Sankar Chatterjee, who claims that Protoavis is actually closer to modern birds than Archeopteryx.

3. The first types of creatures that began to walk on earth - Tiktaalik and pneumodesmus


Tiktaalik, a duck-billed creature that lived in the Devonian period, was a cross between a fish, a frog and an alligator. It is believed that it first got out of the water on land 375 million years ago. Discovered in Canada in 2004, this species is considered an important transitional link between aquatic vertebrates and the first land animals. Tiktaalik can also boast of ribs that are able to support its body out of water, a light, mobile neck and eyes on the top of its head, like a crocodile. The centipede pneumodesmus lived about 428 million years ago. The 1 centimeter-sized creature was actually the first creature to live permanently on earth and breathe air.

4. The oldest reptile - Gilon


Reptiles were the first vertebrates that could live on earth. The lizard-like creature, the Gilon, which is only 20 centimeters long, is believed by scientists to be the oldest reptile. Hylonomas, which appear to have been insectivorous, arose about 310 million years ago. The surviving fossil of this creature was discovered in 1860 inside a tree trunk in Nova Scotia.

5. The oldest creature that can fly - rhinognath

Flying as a primary means of locomotion requires a complex body structure ( low weight body, but a strong skeleton), as well as powerful wing muscles. The first creature that was able to fly is actually the oldest known insect. Rhyniognatha hirsti is a tiny insect that lived about 400 million years ago. The first evidence of the existence of this insect was discovered in 1928 in the Devonian rocks.

6. The first flowering plant - potomacapnos and amborella


People tend to associate plants with flowers, but flowers are actually relatively recent. Before flowers appeared, plants reproduced with spores for hundreds of millions of years. In fact, scientists don't even know why flowers came into being, as they are very delicate and whimsical, and also require a huge amount of energy, which theoretically could be put to a much more rational use.

These obscure circumstances led Darwin to describe the growth of flowers as " terrible secret". Earliest Known Fossils flowering plants belong to the Cretaceous period, between 115 and 125 million years ago. Some of the oldest flowers are potomacapnos, which surprisingly resembles a modern poppy, as well as amborella, which was found on the island. New Caledonia. Everything points to the fact that flowers did not develop slowly, but suddenly arose in fact in their modern form.

7. The most ancient mammal - Hadrocodium


The oldest famous mammal resembled a small mouse or a modern shrew. The length of the hadrocodium, the remains of which were found in China in 2001, was about 3.5 centimeters, and the animal weighed only 2 grams. Most likely, he led a lifestyle similar to the modern shrew, since his teeth were special fangs for grinding insects. The Hadrocodium lived about 195 million years ago, long before some of the most famous dinosaurs, including Stegosaurus, Diplodocus, and Tyrannosaurus Rex.

8. The first tree is vattieza


Trees have played (and still play) a crucial role in shaping the Earth's atmosphere. Without them, carbon dioxide would not turn into oxygen, and the planet would soon become lifeless. The first forests dramatically changed the Earth's ecosystem. Thus, the appearance of trees can be considered one of the most important evolutionary breakthroughs in history.

Currently, the oldest known tree is a 397-million-year-old species that has been named vattieza. The leaves of this fern-like plant resembled a palm, and the tree itself reached a height of 10 meters. Wattiesa arose 140 million years before the dinosaurs. The plant reproduced by spores similar to modern ferns and mushrooms.

9. The oldest dinosaur - nyasasaurus


Dinosaurs began to reign on Earth after the Permian mass extinction, which occurred about 250 million years ago and destroyed about 90 percent of all species on the planet, including 95 percent marine life, and most of the planet's trees. After that, dinosaurs appeared in the Triassic.

The oldest dinosaur known to date is Nyasasaurus, whose bones were discovered in Tanzania in 1930. Until now, scientists have no idea whether he was a predator or herbivore, and he also walked on two legs or four. The height of the nyasasaurus was only 1 meter, and the weight was 18-60 kg.

10 Oldest Life Form


What is the oldest form of life known science? This is a rather difficult question, since often the fossils are so ancient that their age is difficult to accurately determine. For example, rocks discovered near the Pilbara region in Australia contained microbes nearly 3.5 billion years old. However, some scientists believe that such Precambrian organ-walled microfossils are actually a strange form of minerals that arose under special hydrothermal conditions. In other words, they are not alive.

This article focuses on another type of animal that lives almost exclusively on land, in terrestrial environments habitats, and which we call terrestrial or land animals. As you will see below, "terrestrial" does not mean that the animal does not come into contact with water at all; it simply indicates that the aquatic environment cannot ensure the survival of the organism.

Terrestrial or land animals are those that live predominantly or entirely on land (for example, cats, ants, land snails) compared to aquatic animals that live predominantly or completely in water (for example, lobsters), and amphibians or semiaquatic, relying on combination of aquatic and terrestrial habitats (eg frogs, newts or beavers, otters). Terrestrial examples include crickets, grasshoppers, snails, and slugs.

Arthropods (such as flies) are the most common land animals in terms of number of species.

Taxonomy

The exit of animals from the ocean to land is one of the most important events in the history of life on our planet. Land lines have developed from several types of animals, among which , and , represent the most successful groups of land animals.

Terrestrial animals do not form a single clade (they do not have a common ancestor); rather, they are separated only by the fact that they all live on land. The transition from aquatic to terrestrial life in the process occurred independently and successfully many times in different ways. Most terrestrial lines originated in or during the temperate period, while during the period some animals became completely terrestrial.

The labeling "terrestrial" or "aquatic" is often obscure and subject to controversy. Many animals considered terrestrial have a life cycle that depends in part on being in the water. , seals and walruses sleep on land and feed in, but they are all considered terrestrial. Many insects, such as mosquitoes, and all land crabs, as well as other types of animals, have an aquatic stage. life cycle: their eggs must develop and hatch in an aquatic environment; after hatching, they are characterized by early water phase life (nymph or larva).

There are types of crabs that are both fully aquatic and semi-aquatic or terrestrial. beckoning crabs ( Uca) are called "semi-aquatic" because they make holes in the mud substrate, to which they retreat during high tides. When the tide is out, these crabs come to the beach to search for food. The same is true of mollusks: hundreds of genera and species of gastropods live in intermediate environments, for example, Truncatella. Some gastropods with gills live on land, while others with lungs prefer water.

As entirely terrestrial or aquatic animals, numerous borderline species also exist. There are no generally accepted criteria for determining where to place these species, so the designation of some animals is disputed.

Obvious examples

There are animals that, obviously, can be called terrestrial. It's not often that you see a swimming chicken or a flying pig. Most, including humans, horses, dogs, and cats (among many others), are terrestrial. All of them may temporarily move in the aquatic environment for various reasons such as feeding, migration or recreation, but their primary and most important habitats are on land.

Small organisms such as earthworms, crickets, ants and beetles are also land animals. In each terrestrial, from to, there lives an uncountable number of animals that are considered terrestrial. And with the exception of fish and frogs, almost all pets kept by humans are terrestrial. While they may enjoy swimming in the water, land animals such as dogs do not actually live in it.

Non-obvious examples

We have learned that terrestrial animals must live on solid ground to be considered terrestrial, but what about creatures like penguins, crabs, or snails, all of which spend part of their Everyday life V aquatic environments? Since their main habitat is on land, and their dependence on water is usually justified by feeding, they are all generally considered terrestrial creatures.

What about birds? Just as amphibians blur the line between aquatic and terrestrial animals, so it is with birds. They can spend most of their lives on land, but at the same time, because they can fly and live in the canopy of trees, they are considered a special group of land animals known as "arboreal animals". Since they do not rest or nest while flying, they must have some sort of solid habitat, and it is directly or indirectly tied to the earth's surface.

First land animals

Fossil evidence shows that sea ​​creatures, probably related to arthropods, first began to come ashore about 530 million years ago. However, there is no reason to believe that animals first became full-fledged inhabitants of the land during the same period of time. A more plausible hypothesis is that the motivation of these early arthropods to land was to breed (as modern horseshoe crabs do) or lay their eggs out of the reach of predators.

Over time, evidence suggests that at about 375 million years ago, bony fish(for example, Tiktaalik ( Tiktaalik roseae)), most adapted to life in shallow coastal and swampy waters, were much more viable than amphibians and their arthropod predecessors. With relatively strong muscular limbs and lungs combined with gills, Tiktaaliks and animals like them laid the foundation for life on land by the end of the Devonian period. Thus, they are probably the last common ancestor of all modern .

Summarizing

Since the biological community has not developed an officially recognized classification system for terrestrial, aquatic, or semi-aquatic organisms (as for families, genera, species, etc.), there is room for debate as to whether a particular animal belongs to a terrestrial species or not. As a rule, most biologists recognize animals as: terrestrial if they mainly live on land; aquatic, if they exclusively live in water; and semi-aquatic if they spend part of their life cycle in water and part on land.

Birds that can fly and build nests on hard surfaces are considered a special group of land animals. As in many fields of science, continuous study and research may add additional categories or refine the parameters of existing ones in the future.

The evolution of life on the planet began more than three billion years ago, some scientists say that even more than four billion years. It was then that the first organized ecosystems arose, however, these were microbes and bacteria, and mammals were still very far away. So what were the first animals on Earth?

The very first

The oldest traces of animal life on Earth are about a billion years old, and the oldest fossils of the animals themselves are about 600 million years old.

The first animals that appeared on the planet were microscopically small and soft-bodied. They lived on seabed or in bottom silt. These creatures could not be petrified, so the only indication of their stay on Earth is the remains of their holes or passages. The individuals were very resilient, it was they who gave rise to the Ediacaran fauna - the first known animals on the planet.

Ediacaran fauna: light at the end of the Vendian tunnel

The Ediacaran fauna takes its name from the Ediacaran Hills that are found in Australia. Here, in 1946, unusual fossils were discovered, outwardly somewhat similar to modern jellyfish, worms and corals. They were small - an average of 2 centimeters in diameter.

At first, scientists decided that the find belongs to the Cambrian period: it was then that the rapid development of the animal world began (approximately 570 million years ago). But upon closer examination, it was possible to establish that these fossils are even older and belong to more early period- Vendian. This was a real discovery, since no one knew for sure whether life existed during this period.

Then representatives of the Ediacaran fauna were found in different corners planets: in Namibia, Russia, Greenland. But despite the findings, biologists are still trying to figure out what happened to them.

This is what one of these ancient animals, Kimberella, supposedly looked like:

Scientists believe that these are the direct ancestors of modern jellyfish and mollusks.

What did the Ediacarans look like?

The structure of the first animals in the world was the simplest: they had no limbs, head, tail, mouth and digestive organs. Ediacaran creatures didn't do much bright life)) at that time the planet was safe, there were no predators yet, so they didn’t even have anyone to defend themselves from.

It is assumed that they simply absorbed organic matter from the water with their whole body. Moreover, some of them were symbiosis with algae, and outwardly, many of the creatures were very similar to plants.

So, for example, the largest creature was dikinsonia.


Some individuals reached a meter in length, but usually did not exceed one centimeter in thickness. They had a flat, bilaterally symmetrical corrugated oval body. Such a rug.

Scientists have not decided which group it belongs to: some consider it the ancestor of animals, someone says that it is a type of fungus, and still others claim that it generally belonged to a class of creatures that do not exist today in the kingdom of nature. And her modern relatives were never found.

And what happened after the first animals in the world?

The next period in the history of the development of life on Earth is called the Cambrian. It began about 570 million years ago and lasted about 70 million years. It was here that an astonishing evolutionary explosion took place, during which representatives of most of the major groups of animals known to Earth first appeared on Earth. modern science. And this happened due to good climatic conditions.

In the Cambrian period, huge plumes and continental shoals existed on the planet. There were ideal conditions for life: the bottom covered with a layer of soft silt, and warm water. A lot of oxygen has already formed in the atmosphere (although much less than now). The development of hard land covers led to the emergence of new life forms, such as arthropods - the first arthropods.

Animals needed new ways to protect themselves from new highly organized predators. As a result of evolution, creatures developed means for protection, respectively, predators had to develop new methods of hunting in order to overcome the resistance of the victim.

During the Cambrian period, the sea level repeatedly rose and fell, species died out, others came in their place, who had to adapt to new living conditions and ways of subsistence.


The animal world became more diverse, and all more populations could exist next to each other without claiming the food resources of their neighbors.

Pterosaurs

History of animal evolution

Ichthyostega's skull was similar to that of a lobe-finned fish Eusthenopteron, but a pronounced neck separated the body from the head. While the Ichthyostega had four strong limbs, the shape of its hind legs suggests that this animal did not spend all of its time on land.

The first reptiles and the amniotic egg

Hatching a turtle from an egg

One of the greatest evolutionary innovations of the Carboniferous (360 - 268 million years ago) was the amniotic egg, which allowed early reptiles to move away from coastal habitats and colonize dry areas. The amniotic egg allowed the ancestors of birds, mammals and reptiles to breed on land, and prevent the embryo inside from drying out, so you could do without water. It also meant that, unlike amphibians, reptiles were able to produce fewer eggs at any given time, as the risks of hatchlings were reduced.

The earliest date for the development of an amniotic egg is about 320 million years ago. However, reptiles were not exposed to any significant adaptive radiation for about 20 million years. Modern thinking is that these early amniotes still spent time in the water and came ashore, mainly to lay their eggs and not feed. Only after the evolution of herbivores did new groups of reptiles emerge that could exploit the abundant floristic diversity of the Carboniferous.

Hylonomus

The early reptiles belonged to an order called the captorhinids. Gilonomus were representatives of this detachment. They were small, lizard-sized animals with amphibian skulls, shoulders, pelvis, and limbs, as well as intermediate teeth and vertebrae. The rest of the skeleton was reptilian. Many of these new "reptilian" features are also seen in small, modern amphibians.

First mammals

Dimetrodon

A major transition in the evolution of life occurred when mammals evolved from a single lineage of reptiles. This transition began during the Permian period (286 - 248 million years ago), when a group of reptiles that included the Dimetrodons gave birth to the "terrible" therapsids. (Other large branches, sauropsids, gave rise to birds and modern reptiles). These reptilian mammals in turn gave birth to cynodonts such as Thrinaxodon ( Thrinaxodon) during Triassic period.

Trinaxodon

This evolutionary line provides an excellent series of transitional fossils. Development key feature mammals, the presence of a single bone in the lower jaw (compared to several in reptiles) can be traced back to the fossil history of this group. It includes excellent transitional fossils, Diarthrognathus And Morganucodon, whose lower jaws have both reptilian and mammalian articulations with the upper ones. Other new features found in this line include the development various kinds teeth (a feature known as heterodontia), the formation of a secondary palate, and an increase in dentary bone in the mandible. The legs are located directly below the body, an evolutionary advance that occurred in the ancestors of the dinosaurs.

The end of the Permian period was marked by perhaps the greatest. According to some estimates, up to 90% of the species became extinct. (Recent studies have suggested that this event was caused by an asteroid impact that triggered climate change.) During the ensuing Triassic period (248 to 213 million years ago), the survivors of the mass extinction began to occupy vacant ecological niches.

However, at the end of the Permian period, it was dinosaurs, not reptilian mammals, that took advantage of the new available ecological niches to diversify into dominant land vertebrates. In the sea, ray-finned fish began a process of adaptive radiation that made their class the most species-rich of all classes of vertebrates.

Dinosaur classification

One of the major changes in the group of reptiles that gave birth to the dinosaurs was in the posture of the animals. The arrangement of the limbs has changed: previously they protruded on the sides, and then began to grow directly under the body. This had major implications for locomotion, as it allowed for more energy-efficient movements.

Triceratops

Dinosaurs, or "terrible lizards", are divided into two groups, based on the structure hip joint: lizard and ornithischian. Ornithischians include Triceratops, Iguanodon, Hadrosaurus, and Stegosaurus). The lizards are further subdivided into theropods (eg Coelophys and Tyrannosaurus Rex) and sauropods (eg Apatosaurus). Most scientists agree that from theropod dinosaurs.

Although dinosaurs and their immediate ancestors dominated the terrestrial world during the Triassic, mammals continued to evolve during this time.

Further development of early mammals

Mammals are highly developed synapsids. Synapsids are one of the two great branches of the amniote family tree. Amniotes are a group of animals that are characterized by having embryonic membranes, including reptiles, birds, and mammals. Another large amniotic group, the Diapsid, includes birds and all living and extinct reptiles except turtles. Turtles belong to the third group of amniotes - Anapsids. Members of these groups are classified according to the number of openings in the temporal region of the skull.

Dimetrodon

Synapsids are characterized by the presence of a pair of accessory openings in the skull behind the eyes. This discovery gave synapsids (and similarly diapsids, which have two pairs of holes) stronger jaw muscles and best abilities bite, compared to early animals. Pelycosaurs (such as Dimetrodon and Edaphosaurus) were early synapsids; they were reptilian mammals. Later synapsids included therapsids and cynodonts, which lived during the Triassic period.

cynodont

Cynodonts shared many of the characteristics of mammals, including a reduced number or complete absence lumbar ribs, suggesting the presence of a diaphragm; well developed fangs and secondary palate; increased size of the dentition; openings for nerves and blood vessels in the lower jaw, indicating the presence of whiskers.

About 125 million years ago, mammals had already become a diverse group of organisms. Some of these would have been similar to today's monotremes (such as the platypus and echidna), but early marsupials (a group that includes modern kangaroos and opossums) were also present. Until recently, placental mammals (the group to which most living mammals belong) were thought to be of a later evolutionary origin. However, recent discovered fossils and DNA evidence suggest that placental mammals are much older, and may have evolved over 105 million years ago.

Note that marsupials and placental mammals provide excellent examples of convergent evolution, where organisms that are not particularly closely related developed similar body shapes in response to similar exposures. environment.

Plesiosaurs

However, despite the fact that mammals had what many consider "advanced", they were still minor players on the world stage. When the world entered the Jurassic period (213 - 145 million years ago), the dominant animals on land, in the sea and in the air were reptiles. Dinosaurs, more numerous and unusual than during the Triassic, were the main land animals; crocodiles, ichthyosaurs, and plesiosaurs ruled the sea, and pterosaurs populated the air.

Archeopteryx and the evolution of birds

Archeopteryx

In 1861, an intriguing fossil was discovered in the Solnhofen Jurassic limestone in southern Germany, a source of rare but exceptionally well-preserved fossils. The fossil seemed to combine features of both birds and reptiles: a reptilian skeleton accompanied by a clear imprint of feathers.

While Archeopteryx was originally described as a feathered reptile, its for a long time considered a transitional form between birds and reptiles, making this animal one of the most important fossils ever discovered. Until recently, it was the earliest known bird. Recently, scientists have realized that Archeopteryx bears a closer resemblance to the maniraptors, a group of dinosaurs that includes the infamous velociraptors from Park jurassic than with modern birds. Thus, Archeopteryx provides a strong phylogenetic relationship between the two groups. Fossil birds have been found in China that are even older than Archeopteryx, and other feathered dinosaur discoveries support the theory that theropods evolved feathers for insulation and thermoregulation before birds used them for flight.

More scrutiny early history birds is good example the concept that evolution is neither linear nor progressive. The bird lineage is erratic and many "experimental" forms appear. Not everyone achieved the ability to fly, and some looked nothing like modern birds. For example, Microraptor gui, which appears to have been a flying animal with asymmetrical flight feathers on all four limbs, was a dromaeosaurid. Archeopteryx itself did not belong to the lineage from which true birds evolved ( Neornithes), but was a member of the now-extinct enanciornis birds ( Enantiornithes).

End of the Dinosaur Age

Dinosaurs spread throughout the world during the Jurassic period, but during the subsequent Cretaceous(145 - 65 million years ago) their species diversity was declining. In fact, many of the typically Mesozoic organisms such as ammonites, belemnites, ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, and pterosaurs were in decline during this time, despite still giving birth to new species.

emergence flowering plants during the early Cretaceous caused a major adaptive radiation among insects: new groups emerged such as butterflies, moths, ants and bees. These insects drank the nectar from the flowers and acted as pollinators.

The mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous, 65 million years ago, wiped out the dinosaurs, along with any other land animal weighing more than 25 kg. This paved the way for the expansion of mammals on land. In the sea at this time, fish again became the dominant vertebrate taxon.

modern mammals

At the beginning of the Paleocene (65 - 55.5 million years ago), the world was left without large land animals. This unique situation has become Starting point for the great evolutionary diversification of mammals that were previously nocturnal animals the size of small rodents. By the end of the era, these representatives of the fauna occupied many of the free ecological niches.

The oldest confirmed primate fossils are about 60 million years old. Early primates evolved from ancient nocturnal insectivores, something like shrews, and resembled lemurs or tarsiers. They were probably arboreal animals and lived in or subtropical forests. Many of them characteristic features were well suited to this habitat: gripping hands, rotating shoulder joints, and stereoscopic vision. They also had a relatively large brain size and claws on their fingers.

Earliest known majority fossils modern detachments mammals appear in a short period during the early Eocene (55.5-37.7 million years ago). Both groups of modern ungulates - artiodactyls (a detachment to which cows and pigs belong) and equids (including horses, rhinos and tapirs) have become widespread throughout North America and Europe.

Ambulocetus

At the same time that mammals were diversifying on land, they were also returning to the sea. The evolutionary transitions that led to whales have been carefully studied in last years with extensive fossil finds from India, Pakistan and the Middle East. These fossils point to a change from terrestrial Mesonychia, which are the likely ancestors of whales, to animals such as Ambulocetus and primitive whales called Archaeocetes.

The trend towards a cooler global climate that occurred during the Oligocene epoch (33.7-22.8 million years ago) contributed to the emergence of grasses, which were to spread to vast grasslands during the subsequent Miocene (23.8-5.3 million years ago). ). This change in vegetation led to the evolution of animals, such as more modern horses, with teeth that could handle the high silica content of grasses. The cooling trend has also affected the oceans, reducing the amount of marine plankton and invertebrates.

Although DNA evidence suggests that hominids evolved during the Oligocene, abundant fossils did not appear until the Miocene. Hominids, on the evolutionary line leading to humans, first appear in the fossil record during the Pliocene (5.3 - 2.6 million years ago).

During the entire Pleistocene (2.6 million - 11.7 thousand years ago) there were about twenty cycles of cold ice age and warm interglacial periods at intervals of about 100,000 years. During the Ice Age, glaciers dominated the landscape, snow and ice spread in the lowlands and transported great amount breeds. Because a lot of water was locked up on the ice, the sea level dropped to 135 m than it is now. Wide land bridges allowed plants and animals to move. During warm periods, large areas were again submerged under water. These repeated episodes of environmental fragmentation resulted in rapid adaptive radiation in many species.

The Holocene is the current epoch of geological time. Another term that is sometimes used is the Anthropocene because its main characteristic is the global changes caused by human activities. However, this term can be misleading; modern humans were already created long before the beginning of the era. The Holocene epoch began 11.7 thousand years ago and continues to the present day.

Mammoths

When warming came on Earth, she gave way. As the climate changes, very large mammals that have adapted to extreme cold, such as woolly rhinoceros, died out. Humans, once dependent on these "mega-mammals" as their main source of food, have switched to smaller animals and started harvesting plants to supplement their diet.

Evidence shows that around 10,800 years ago, the climate underwent a sharp cold turn that lasted several years. The glaciers did not return, but there were few animals and plants. As temperatures began to recover, animal populations grew and new species emerged that still exist today.

Currently, the evolution of animals continues, as new factors arise that force representatives of the animal world to adapt to changes in their environment.

What animals were the first to inhabit land? You will find the answer to this question in this article.

What animals were the first to inhabit land?

Today it is not known for certain how the animals managed to conquer the land, and who was the first to conquer the land. But scientists are sure that they were invertebrates. However, the remains of these animals, which were the first to set foot on land, were found, unfortunately, very little.

The fact that plants began to develop and multiply on land created the very prerequisite for the appearance of terrestrial fauna. While the land was empty, it was covered only by sands and rocky mountains, and there was no life on it. However, as soon as the expanses of land began to be covered with greenery, food could already be found there. Various types animals.

Research scientists give us the facts that The first animals to walk on land were centipedes and scorpions. Based on the finds, wingless insects can be attached to these animals. All invertebrates began to live on land immediately after the first plants appeared on the banks of water bodies.

The first inhabitants of the land resembled modern scorpions in appearance. And if the first amphibians appeared in the Devonian, then the active conquest of land by vertebrates began in the Carboniferous. The first vertebrates fully adapted to life on land - reptiles. Reptile eggs were covered with a hard shell, were not afraid of drying out, were provided with food and oxygen for the embryo. The first reptiles were small animals, and resembled living lizards. In the Carboniferous, insects reach considerable development.