No, I wasn’t stoned. This thought was inspired by the post the other day about how trees evolved independently (e: multiple times) from different plants, the product of convergent evolution.
No, I wasn’t stoned. This thought was inspired by the post the other day about how trees evolved independently (e: multiple times) from different plants, the product of convergent evolution.
Some (probably bacteria-like) form of life appeared almost as soon as conditions made it possible, so it’s conceivable that it arose multiple times in earth’s history. But eucaryotes (animals, plants, and fungi) took almost half the lifetime of the earth to appear, and have a lot of contingent features, so it’s overwhelmingly likely that all eucaryotes have a common ancestor.