Maybe it feels counter-intuitive to some that sharks were there before trees...

But I hope it is intuitive that there was water long before there was soil? Then it's just a small step to realize life in water has had a much longer time to develop.

Mosses were likely already there though

I knew someone who utterly refused to believe that dinosaurs weren't the first organisms in existence. He literally thought it was dinosaurs, then there was an asteroid impact and then basically humans arrived about 10 minutes later.

People have absolutely no understanding of the immense amount of time that has existed before we came along.

Mind he also gave me that whole if earth was 1 cm closer to the sun, we would all burn up malarkey, so maybe he's just an idiot.

"If a tree is so basic, then why aren't there trees growing in the middle of the ocean?" seems like the sort of argument that would impress Ray.

It’s such a shame that all of human knowledge isnt readily available to this person. Oh it is, on the very device he’s using to post this, how embarrassing

The oldest shark teeth are from the Early Devonian, about 410 million years old. These are without a doubt sharks, although different species than exist currently. The earliest fossil of a plant engaging in this evolutionary strategy is a 12 meter tall palm-like plant from China. It dates back, again, to the Early Devonian, but less than 400 million years ago.

Which means the first toothed sharks predate the first plant which could be called a tree by 10 million years.

Sharks are older than the rings of Saturn!

Can blow some MFers mind when you tell them trees took Earth by surprise and were so new that they didn't rot. Trees just fell over and stayed there forever, well ... until they got turned into oil.

Trees aren’t basic just because they don’t move.

Sharks have existed for so long that they have made almost TWO orbits around the milky way.

The species has existed for longer than Pleiades

Who the fuck has a basic question like this and posts it on Twitter rather than just looking the answer up

For anyone wondering (numbers in million years ago (mya))

• 538: cambrian explosion
• 419: sharks
• 385: tree ferns, horsetail trees & co. (also, Ginkgo)
• 245: conifers (lignin)
• 230: lignin decomposing
• 130: flowering plants (like, maple)
• 65: forests covering the globe
• 1.5 to recently: four glacial periods

Huh. Yeah I never knew. Never really thought about it but knew not nonetheless.

Ask that dude if he ever saw a tree under the ocean.