Scientists, question about evolution:?
Do you believe that early animals evolved from plants or that single celled animal micro-organisms evolved spontaneously the way the first plant life did?
Do you believe that early animals evolved from plants or that single celled animal micro-organisms evolved spontaneously the way the first plant life did?
reddfrog
Favorite Answer
Plants, and animals are eukaryotes, and share a common ancestor somewhere in the vicinity of 1.6 billion years ago. At some point they two lineages split apart, with animal cells being primarily consumers, and plant cells gaining chloroplasts similarly to the way earlier eukaryotes gained mitochondria. (this probably happened by the cells that would become plants engulfing and becoming symbiotically linked with blue green algae.)
Eukaryotes evolved from even earlier prokaryote cells, which probably evolved a few billion years earlier.
JazSinc
> Do you believe that early animals evolved from plants
No
> or that single celled animal
Single-celled animals evolved from multicellular ancestors. Almost all animals are multicellular.
Look up
Myxozoa
> micro-organisms evolved spontaneously
Look up
abiogenesis
> the way the first plant life did?
Plants evolved from Charophyta green algaes. Some classification schemes lump plants and Charophyta together as "Kingdom Viridiplantae."
Asst Prof
The first living "organisms" are assumed to have been heterotrophs (like animals). They got their energy by taking in energy-rich compounds from their environment. Autotrophy evolved when these compounds became scarce. So, you could say that plants evolved from animals...
Brigalow Bloke
None of the above
Idi
both are a possibility