Supplemental Lecture (99/12/29 update) by Stephen T. Abedon (abedon.1@osu.edu)
(1)
Chapter title: The Evolution of Man
(a)
An index to all of the vocabulary words found on this
site also exists [index]
(a) This page has been under development for quite some time as a part of the introductory biology course that I teach at the Ohio State University. It is meant to be an extension of the diversity of life material presented by Campbell (1996) in his introductory biology text. As will become abundantly clear upon observation of the presented table (below), I have gotten somewhat carried away. Nevertheless, what is presented is my current understanding of the evolutionary history of man.
(b) The table is a list of more or less nested clades going from the universal ancestor on down to Homo sapiens. Included with most categories are links to sites (e.g., The Tree of Life) providing additional information (though some supply more information than others).
(c) Note that not all of the named clades are commonly included in a formal taxonomic description of Homo sapiens, i.e., Domain, Kingdom, Phylum, Subphylum, Class, Order, Suborder, Superfamily, Family, Genus, and Species as Eucarya, Animalia, Chordata, Vertebrata, Mammalia, Primates, Anthropoidea, Hominoidea, Hominidae, Homo, and sapiens, respecitively, though those that are included (as just listed) are listed capitalized and without parentheses (formal taxonomic descriptions not commonly used formally with Homo sapiens are listed, instead, parenthetically and starting with lowercase). The problem, of course, is that formally recognized taxa are often paraphyletic and therefore (by definition) not true clades. Here I am making an attempt at listing and nesting all of the known, true clades that include humans, plus listing all fossil species that might be ancestral (with the caveat that many or all fossils are at best controversially ancestral).
(d) Note that I am not a paleobiologist but, instead, a bacteriophage ecologist (see: www.phage.org) so will no doubt have made numerous grave errors. Any help in correcting these errors, or embedding better links will be most appreciated.
(e) Additional material, some better than others, that I have provided elsewhere on the web can be found by clicking on the following links:
(ii) history of Earth
(iii) brief introduction to biology
(iv) decent with modification: a Darwinian view of life (Campbell chapter outline)
(vi) the evolution of populations (Campbell chapter outline)
(vii) evolutionary biology
(viii) population genetics
(x) the origin of species (Campbell chapter outline)
(xi) speciation
(xii) tracing phylogeny: macroevolution, the fossil record, and systematics (Campbell chapter outline)
(xiii) classification of organisms
(xiv) early earth and the origin of life (Campbell chapter outline)
(xvi) history of earth
(xvii) brief introduction to biology domains and kingdoms
(xviii) prokaryotes and the origins of metabolic diversity (Campbell chapter outline)
(xix) bacteria
(xx) archaeabacteria
(xxi) the origins of eukaryotic diversity (Campbell chapter outline)
(xxii) protozoa
(xxiv) plants and the colonization of land (Campbell chapter outline)
(xxv) evolution of plants
(xxvi) reproduction by seed
(xxvii) fungi (Campbell chapter outline)
(xxviii) invertebrates and the origin of animal diversity (Campbell chapter outline)
(xxix) the vertebrate genealogy (Campbell chapter outline)
(xxx) ascent of mammals
(xxxi) descent of man
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Category |
Taxon, Geological Age, etc. |
Characteristics,
Description, quote are from Campbell, 1996 |
First (mya) appearance
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created by the big bang |
~10,000 |
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our galaxy |
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our star, a.k.a., sol, created via the condensation of a large cloud of mostly hydrogen gas |
~4600 |
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our planet, a.k.a., home, created by accretion |
~4600 |
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our sister plant, created upon the collision of a Mars-size body with early plant earth |
~4000 |
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the movement of continents across the face of the earth |
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(species?) |
a prokaryote [Carl Woese’s home page] |
~3500 |
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--- |
first oxygen pulse |
"oxygen begins accumulating in atmosphere" |
2200-1800 |
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Domain |
organisms with
nuclei; 67% of Earth's history is already over |
~1500 |
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(kingdom) |
Archezoa |
eight-kingdom kingdom of eukaryotes lacking mitochondria |
ditto |
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(domain) |
ancestor of endosymbiotic bacteria |
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(kingdom) |
protozoa, single-celled eukaryotes (etc.) in five-kingdom system |
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endosymbiont-containing eukaryotes |
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(kingdom) |
Protista |
protozoa, non-Chromista, non-Plantae, single-celled mitochondrial eucaryotes (eight-kingdom system) |
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(phylum) |
Zoomastigophora |
a.k.a., zooflagelata and mastigophora; flagellated mitochondrial protists |
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protist, possible animal (and fungi) ancestor |
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animals, fungi, plants, etc. |
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Kingdom |
metazoans |
~700 |
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(subkingdom) |
Eumetazoa |
true body tissues |
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--- |
second oxygen pulse |
"oxygen begins accumulating in atmosphere" |
~600 |
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Bilataria |
animals with
bilateral symmetry, triploblastic |
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true body cavities;
not true clade? |
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animals with
derived mouths |
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era |
Paleozoic |
Cambrian explosion; 87.5% of
Earth's history is already over |
570
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Phylum |
tunicates,
lancelets, fish |
>530 |
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period |
Cambrian |
"origin of most invertebrate
phyla; diverse algae" |
570
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animals with skulls: hagfish and vertebrates |
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hagfish (primitive craniate) |
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period |
Ordovician |
"first vertebrates (jawless
fishes); marine algae abundant" |
510
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Subphylum |
lampreys and jawed
vertebrates |
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(super class) |
extinct jawless vertebrates |
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vertebrates with jaws |
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Teleostomi |
mouth terminal in position, narrow-based braincase, three otoliths in ear |
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period |
Silurian |
"diversity of jawless
vertebrates; colonization of land by plants and arthropods; origin of
vascular plants" |
439
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(class) |
bony fish [transition from primitive
fish to bony fish] |
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(subclass) |
fleshy-finned fish (lobe-finned & lung fish) |
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(order) |
lobe-finned fishes |
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(order) |
Rhipidistians |
ancestral
lobe-finned fish |
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period |
Devonian |
"diversification of bony
fishes; first amphibians and insects" |
408.5
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(species) |
footprints through muddy shallows on four feet (National Geographic, 5/99 issue) |
365 |
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terrestrial
vertebrates (amphibians onward) [transition from primitive
bony fish to amphibian (Talk.Origins)] |
? |
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Anthrocosauria |
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period |
Carboniferous |
"extensive forests of
vascular plants; first seed plants; origin of reptiles; amphibians and
insects" |
362.5
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