User:Mateuszica/timeline

This timeline outlines the major events in the development of our species and the evolution of our ancestors.

The table uses the abbreviations "MYA" for "million years ago" and "kYA" for "thousand years ago."

Timeline of evolution of our species
Date	Event
4000 MYA	File:NA-comparedto-DNA thymineAndUracilCorrected.png RNA and DNA Life appears, possibly derived from self-reproducing RNA molecules. These copying/reproduction/replication requires resources like energy, space and smaller building blocks, which soon got limited, resulting in competition. Natural selection favors those molecules which are more efficient at replication.
3900 MYA	prokaryote Cells resembling prokaryotes appear. These first organisms are chemoautotrophs: they use carbon dioxide as a carbon source and oxidize inorganic materials to extract energy. Later prokaryotes evolve glycolysis.The split between the bacteria and the archaea occurs.
2500 MYA	Some bacteria evolve the ability to utilize oxygen to more efficiently use the energy from organic molecules such as glucose.
2100 MYA	File:Biological cell.png eukaryote More complex cells appear: the eukaryotes, which contain various organelles.Most have organelles which are probably derived from symbiotic bacteria: mitochondria, which use oxygen to extract energy from organic molecules and appear similar to today's Rickettsia.
1200 MYA	Sexual reproduction evolves and leads to an explosion in the rate of evolution. While most life occurs in oceans and lakes, some cyanobacteria may already have lived in moist soil by this time.
1000 MYA	Multicellular organisms appear: initially colonial algae and later, seaweeds, living in the oceans.
600 MYA	Porifera Sponges (Porifera), Jellyfish (Cnidaria), and other multicellular animals appear in the oceans. Cnidaria and Ctenophora are some of the earliest creatures to have neurons, in the form a simple net - no brain or nervous system.
590 MYA	Flatworms Platyhelminthes was the first billateral animals. they are the simplest bilateral animals today. Caenorhabditis elegans
570 MYA	Lancelet The first chordates as Lancelet, pikaia .
505 MYA	Early Agnatha, the Ostracoderm was the first fishes (first vertebrates) Precursors to the bony fish.they was jawless such as Arandaspis. .Their internal skeletons were cartilaginous . They lacked the paired (pectoral and pelvic) fins of more advanced fish. Prehistoric_fish
365 MYA	Sarcopterygii Some fresh water lobe-finned fish (Sarcopterygii) develop legs and give rise to the Tetrapoda.
315 MYA	File:Acantho.jpg Acantho Amphibia were the first four-legged animals to develop lungs]. During the following Carboniferous period they also developed the ability to walk on land to avoid aquatic competition and predation while allowing them to travel from water source to water source , and move out onto land, probably to hunt insects. Ichthyostega , Acanthostega and Pederpes finneyae . See Prehistoric amphibian.
300 MYA	Evolution of the amniotic egg gives rise to the Amniota, reptiles who can reproduce on land.
280 MYA	Vertebrates included many Temnospondyl, Anthrachosaur, and Lepospondyl amphibians and early anapsid and synapsid (e.g. Edaphosaurus) reptiles
256 MYA	Diictodon, Cistecephalus, Dicynodon, Lycaenops, Dinogorgon and Procynosuchus, are a few of the many mammal-like reptiles known from South Africa and Russia.
220 MYA	From synapsids came the first mammal precursors, therapsids, and more specifically the eucynodonts. Initially, they stay small and shrew-like. Constant body temperature. All mammals have milk glands for their young. One of a pair of autosomes acquires a SRY gene derived from SOX3 from X chromosome to become the Y chromosome, which has been decreasing in length since.
125 MYA	Eomaia Eomaia scansoria, a eutherian mammal, which leads to the formation of modern placental mammals. Looks like modern dormouse, climbing small shrubs in Liaoning, China.
100 MYA	Common genetic ancestor of mice and humans.
65 MYA	A group of small, nocturnal and arboreal, insect-eating mammals called the Archonta branches into the primates, tree shrews and bats. Primates have binocular vision and grasping digits, features that help them to jump from one tree branch to another. One example is Plesiadapis which is extinct by 45 million years ago.
64 MYA	Lemurs cross the ocean into Madagascar from Africa mainland.
55 MYA	The earliest true primates, called euprimates, first appear in North America, Asia, and Europe. One eg. is Carpolestes simpsoni at Clarks Fork Basin of Wyoming. It has grasping digits but no forward facing eyes. Another (earliest?) euprimate Teilhardina asiatica (Hunan, China) is mouse-sized, diurnal and has small eyes.
40 MYA	Primates (order) diverge into suborders Prosimians (a primitive monkey) and Anthropoids, the latter is diurnal and herbivorous. Examples of today's prosimians are tarsiers, lemurs, lorises.
30 MYA	Anthropoid (suborder) splits into infraorders Platyrrhini (New World Monkeys) and Catarrhini (Old World Primates). New World Monkeys have prehensile tails and migrated to South America. Catarrhines stayed in Africa as the two continents drifted apart. One ancestor of catarrhines might be Aegyptopithecus. New world monkey males are color blind. Anthropoids: Bugtipithecus inexpectans, Phileosimias kamali and Phileosimias brahuiorum similar to today's lemurs, lived in rainforests on Bugti Hills of central Pakistan.
25 MYA	Catarrhini males gain color vision but lose the pheromone pathway. Catarrhini (infraorder)(Old World Primates) splits into 2 superfamilies, Old world monkeys (Cercopithecoidea) and Hominoids. The Old world monkey does not have a prehensile tail (e.g. Baboon); some do not have tails at all. All hominoids have no tails (e.g. the lesser apes, great apes and hominids).
15 MYA	Human ancestors speciate from the ancestors of the gibbon. Orangutans, gorillas and chimpanzees are great apes. Humans are hominids.
13 MYA	Human ancestors speciate from the ancestors of the orangutan. Pierolapithecus catalaunicus, Spain, common ancestor of great apes and humans.
10 MYA	The climate begins to dry, savannas and grasslands take over the earlier forests. Human ancestors speciate from the ancestors of the gorillas.
5 MYA	Human ancestors speciate from the ancestors of the chimpanzees. The latest common ancestor is Sahelanthropus tchadensis (Chad, Sahara, west of Rift Valley). The earliest in the human branch is Orrorin tugenensis (Millennium Man, Kenya). see User:Mateuszica/timeline/human

SEE ALSO