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animals are our last branch to look at on the tree of life! so let's remind ourselves of all of the major events that we have discussed! to do so, draw a timeline starting with the formation of the earth to modern day and include the following events on the timeline. if you can't find exact dates, some of them are not well known or definitive, don't worry. what we mostly want you to think about is the order of the events, what had to come first and a general scale.

User Mgalgs
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Final answer:

The timeline of Earth's history begins with its formation, followed by the rise of microorganisms, multicellular life, mammals, birds, flowers, and finally the Homo genus and modern humans. Understanding this timeline, we realize humans are a recent addition to Earth's biodiversity.

Step-by-step explanation:

Timeline of Major Events in Earth's History

The history of life on Earth is extensive, and while exact dates for some events are not well known, their order is crucial to understanding evolutionary history. A timeline can help visualize these major events:

  1. Formation of the Earth (around 4.54 billion years ago).
  2. Appearance of the first microorganisms, which are thought to be the earliest forms of life on Earth (at least 3.5 billion years ago).
  3. Emergence of multicellular life and eventual development from marine protists to the first multicellular animals (sometime between 1 billion and 541 million years ago).
  4. Origin of mammals, birds, and flowering plants (130 to 200 million years ago).
  5. Homo genus, to which modern humans belong, appears on the planet (2.5 million years ago).
  6. Modern humans (Homo sapiens) begin to exhibit features similar to those of people today (around 200,000 years ago).

These events on the geological timescale show how life evolved from simple forms to the complex biodiversity we observe today. Scientists use a phylogenetic tree to understand such evolutionary relationships, depicting the ancestry of species, shared traits, and genetic divergences over time.

User Vampirewalk
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