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The western black rhinoceros is declared extinct. -
The dodo goes extinct. -
Evolution of Neanderthals. -
Anatomically modern humans appear in Africa. Around 50,000 years before the present they began to colonize the other continents, replacing Neanderthals in Europe and Asia. -
Evolution of Homo antecessor. -
First dinosaurs and first mammals. -
Amphibian diversification.
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At the beginning of the Carboniferous Period, the Earth began to resemble its present state. Insects roamed the land and would soon take to the skies; sharks swam the oceans as top predators; and vegetation covered the land, with seed-bearing plants and forests soon to flourish. -
First signs of teeth in fish. -
First vertebrates with real bones (jawless fish). -
The first crustaceans. -
The earliest known footprints on earth. -
Great diversification of living beings in the oceans: arthropods, chordates, echinoderms, molluscs, brachiopods, foraminifera and radiolarians, among others… -
The accumulation of atmospheric oxygen allows the formation of an ozone layer. Advances in terrestrial life would probably have required other chemicals to attenuate ultraviolet radiation sufficiently to allow colonization of the land. -
Beginning of animal evolution. -
Sexual reproduction appears for the first time in the fossil record; it may have increased the rate of evolution. -
First terrestrial fungi. -
Eukaryotic cells appear. Eukaryotes contain organelles (elementary constituent part of the cell) membrane-bound with diverse functions, probably derived from prokaryotes that envelop each other through phagocytosis). The appearance of red beds indicates that an oxidizing atmosphere had been produced. -
Lifespan of the last universal common ancestor (LUCA). Division between bacteria and archaea occurs.
Bacteria develop primitive forms of photosynthesis that initially produced no oxygen. These organisms generated adenosine triphosphate (ATP), a mechanism that is still used in virtually all organisms, unchanged, to this day. -
Prokaryote-like cells appear. These early organisms use carbon dioxide as a carbon source and oxidize inorganic materials to extract energy. -
Earliest possible appearance of life on Earth. -
First appearance of liquid water on Earth. -
Following the hypothesized giant impact of planet Earth and the hypothetical planet Theia, the Moon originated, sending a large number of small moons in orbit around the young Earth that eventually coalesced to form the Moon. The gravitational pull of the new Moon stabilized the Earth's axis of rotation.
