Re: First life form on earth

in article [EMAIL PROTECTED], Red Dragon at
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote on 11/20/03 8:53 AM:

> Does anybody  know the first life form on earth,

Not precisely.

> was it a plant or an animal
> in Charles Darwin 's origin of Species?

Darwin did not address this issue, but there is no question that the first
organism was neither a plant nor an animal.  It took billions of years of
evolution before either plants or animals arose.  The first organism would
clearly have been a single-celled, bacterium-like beast.

> I am inclined to think it is a plant
> and  I read from somewhere that it was   green algae.   But  I also came
> across somewhere that it was  sponges.   That leads to the next question
> namely,  how did the plant become an animal?

You knowledge base must not include much about evolutionary biology to think
that the first organism could have been anything like a plant or animal
(including sponges).  The notion that it could have been a multicellular
animal, like a sponge, is inconsistent with all the information we have on
the subject.

Note that the evidence is pretty clear that animals did not evolve from
plants, or vice versa.  I am not sure what you are asking when you write
"how did the plant become an animal?", but changes of this sort are
generally called evolution.  Taxa evolve and become different than their
ancestors.

Guy