Synthisophy 527 

Lesson 3, continued... 

The earliest amphibians evolved in the Devonian period 400 million years ago from fish with lungs and bony-limbed fins, features that were helpful in adapting to dry land. Amphibians lay their eggs in water, but can live on land.

Reptiles appeared on the evolutionary clock about 300 million years ago, they were the first animal species that could live completely on land.  Reptiles have scales, are cold blooded and lay their eggs on land. Dinosaurs comprised the largest group of reptiles and the largest animals that ever roamed the earth They became extinct 65 million years ago.  An asteroid is thought to have crashed into the earth in the area of the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico, which threw such a huge plume of ashes and debris into the air that it saturated the atmosphere for years, limiting the sun’s shine on the earth, killing almost all plants and thus causing the extinction of dinosaurs – they no longer had huge amounts of plants to eat.  A brachiosaurus would need to eat 1000 pounds of plants per day to survive.

Note that before the dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago, mammals were already present, as small nocturnal creatures:


The few mammals that existed 65 million years ago were mainly nocturnal insect eaters, and as such, they were able to survive the asteroid strike – there were still plenty of bugs around.

 Here’s what happened evolutionarily after that:


















           





                  Sixty million years ago, our ancestor went into the trees, and looked like lemurs today:

 









                                            And then 50 million years ago split into tarsiers:










            Then 35 million years ago into new world monkeys, now living in Mexico and South America:









                        Then 23 million years ago into old world monkeys, now living in Africa and Asia:
 
                                                    Then 14 million years ago into gibbons:


                                                      12 million years ago into orangutans










                                                     












Amphibian
400 million
years ago
Amphibian
    today