-->500M (small)

Slime molds
Fungi
Lichens
Land Plant
Tube worm
Oyster

1,000,000,000 BC- 500,000,000 BC

Slime molds (900,000,000 BC)

I evolved when eukaryote cells grouped together to form me. I was a group of function-specific cells aggregated into a slug-like mass which moved as a multi-cellular unit. We used spores to reproduce. A part of our lives, we appeared as a gelatinous "slime". We were found all over the world in soil and we fed on microorganisms that lived in any type of dead organic material. We contributed to their decomposition. Most of us were smaller than a few centimeters, but some of us reached sizes of up to several square meters and masses of up to 30 grams. When food was abundant, we existed as a single-celled organism, but when food was in short supply, we congregated and started moving as a single body. In this state we were sensitive to airborne chemicals and could detect food sources.

We could readily change our shape and function and formed stalks that produced fruiting bodies. The fruiting bodies looked like fungi or molds and released countless spores which were light enough to be carried by the wind. The spores hatched into amoebae to repeat the life cycle. We began life as amoeba-like cells and multiplied when and if we encountered our favorite food - bacteria. We mated when we encountered the opposite sex. Our new born babies contained many nuclei without cell membranes between them. When our food supply waned, we transformed into rigid fruiting bodies. When we were separated into separate parts, our cells found their way back to re-unite. We could learn and predict periodic unfavorable conditions and displayed some behaviors that were equal to those of animals who possessed muscles, nerves and brains.

We built resilient transport networks with back-up routes to get to our food supplies just like civil engineers 900,000,000 years later built in their cities.

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Fungi (800,000,000 BC)

I was one of the first living forms to grow on land. I rooted myself to the earth and grew fruit called "mushrooms" to reproduce like the plants that came a few million years after me. We had to eat organic material for our energy like the animals that came a few millions of years after us. We performed an essential role in the decomposition of organic material, just like the bacteria did. We grew structures called "hyphae" that extracted nutrients very efficiently. They were cylindrical, thread-like branching root-like structures 2–10 millionth of a meter in diameter and up to several centimeters in length. This structure led to the development of "mycelium", an interconnected network of hyphae. We were like the apple trees that appeared millions of years later, except we were underground. Our main body, the mycelium, was like the tree and our mushrooms above ground were like apples.

Hyphae could be either male or female depending on if they sprouted from spores of male mycelium which were like sperm, or spores of female mycelium which were like eggs. When two hyphae of opposite sex met and mated, the male hyphae physically coupled like a lock and key with the female hyphae and joined their DNA. Once mated, the two hyphae grew and interconnected into a mycelium. When the environmental conditions were just right, mushrooms which produced spores sprouted and grew into either male hyphae or female hyphae to repeat the life-cycle..

As yeasts, we were as small as a single cell. As molds, we were as big as 9 square km. Some of us could live up to 9,000 years. We lived in every part of the world including in extreme environments such as deserts, areas with high salt concentrations or ionizing radiation, as well as in deep sea sediments. Some of us could even survive the intense UV and cosmic radiation encountered during space travel.

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Lichens (700,000,000 BC)

I was one of the first living forms made from a partnership of 2 different separate living forms; a green alga and a fungus. I was a composite organism consisting of a fungus and a photosynthetic partner growing together in a symbiotic relationship. The fungus surrounded the algal cells, often enclosing them within complex fungal tissues. Some lichens had leaves while others adopted shrubby forms. Some formed a hard crust, while others had a gelatinous body.

The alga used energy from sunlight and took carbon dioxide from the air to make sugars to feed both itself and the fungus it partnered with. Both partners gained water and mineral nutrients mainly from the atmosphere through rain and dust. The fungus protected the alga by retaining water. It served as a larger capture area for mineral nutrients and provided minerals obtained from the surface on which both lived.

We were extremely hardy. We could live a very long time in extremely dry conditions and in some of the most extreme environments on Earth - arctic tundra, hot deserts, toxic slag heaps and bare rocks. Many millions of years later when forests appeared, we grew on the leaves and branches of trees. When man appeared, we liked to grow on his gravestones and on the roofs of his houses. Man eventually learned to use us for his perfumes, his medicines and his purple and red dyes.

Bacteria, which were the only living forms able to produced nitrogen from the air, were most welcome to join us and form a threesome. Then we all benefited and our lives were greatly enriched. We then never had to worry about having enough nitrogen should it be lacking from the rocks we grew on. We were then able to grow on the hardest of rocks. We were like ploughs, preparing the hard rock into soft earth needed by the sea plants which were dying to land on land and take root. 

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Land Plant (600,000,000 BC)

 

I was one of the first plants to grow on land. I was a pioneer. All plants before me grew in water until I made my roots so deep that I could find water deep under the dried earth. I evolved to survive on dry land. I made seeds that formed plants that were much more able to survive on dry land than I was. With many generations, over many millions of years, plants soon covered the earth; from the driest deserts to the highest mountains. 

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Tube worm (520,000,000 BC)

I was born a very robust and widespread tube worm. Some of us lived in the coldest and darkest ocean floors 6km deep under extreme pressures. Others tolerated the extreme high temperatures near hydro thermal vents spewing out corrosive acids much hotter than boiling water. Others formed part of the plankton, a collection of organisms near the surface of the sea and in shallow fresh water lakes.

I was a segmented worm less than 10cm in length, although others were much smaller and much longer than me, ranging from less than 1mm to more than 3m. Some were brightly colored, and gave off their own glowing light. I had no eyes, gut or stomach. I survived off the bacteria inside my body which kept me alive. I anchored my tail to an underwater surface and secreted around my body a mineral tube in which I could withdraw my entire body.

Most of us reproduced by fertilizing eggs externally. Others died to reproduce, having their body walls completely rupture. I was one of the few lucky ones that copulated to reproduce and lived to tell about it and to do it again.

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Oyster (500,000,000 BC)

I was born an oyster on the bottom of the ocean. I lived 500 million years ago. I lived up to 50 years. I ate by filtering water containing plankton and minute organic particles. I was a fast drinker being able to drink and filter up to 5 liters of water every hour with my gills. I had a 3-chambered heart that pumped colorless blood that absorbed oxygen from the water and 2 kidneys that removed waste products from my blood. My reproductive organs contained both eggs and sperm.

During my first year, I was a male and released sperm into the water. As I grew over the next 2 to 3 years, I became a female and released eggs. Each year I produced 100 million eggs. Once my eggs were fertilized, I discharged millions of them into the water. The larvae developed in about 6 hours and swam around for about 2 to 3 weeks. Then they settle on a bed or reef of other matured oysters. I matured within a year. We were like coral reefs having hundreds of animals, such as sea anemones, barnacles, and hooked mussels, inhabit our bed. Many millions of years later, my descendants became prey to larger animals, including fish. Despite the protective shell, oysters had many predators like crabs, sea birds, starfish, and eventually humans.

Not all the crabs ate us. Some used us as their home living inside our shells. We were ecosystem engineers providing "supporting", "provisioning", and "regulating" services. One day a fisherman found me and found inside me something most beautiful. It was a pearl that I had made by covering an annoying parasite that had managed to invade me when I was very young. During my entire lifetime, I covered it with my saliva called nacre that I secreted. With enough layers of nacre, that irritating object became a beautiful pearl. That pearl ended up to adorn thousands of beautiful ladies over thousands of years after I died.

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NEXT:

->300M BC

Fish, Starfish, Shark, Amphibian, Moss, Fern, Snail

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