• Norn@lemmy.zip
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    78
    ·
    3 months ago

    Regardless of topic, I can relate to the need to look something up in the middle of the night for peace of mind.

  • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    45
    ·
    3 months ago

    This isn’t really a mystery. We know the fossil record is incomplete, something like 99% of species are almost certainly not represented in the fossil record and what is present will massively be biased towards marine life.

    Plants don’t fossilize particularly well anyways so it’s not surprising that we don’t have records for these organisms. The fact that we have records for the existence of ferns at all is probably evidence of them suddenly becoming massively prolific (I wonder if some major environmental change occurred around that time ☄️) rather than them springing out a thin air.

    • NottaLottaOcelot@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      13
      ·
      3 months ago

      They were dropped off by aliens. The very same ones who returned millions of years later to build us pyramids. It’s a very philanthropic extra-terrestrial community

  • bert_brause
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    20
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    3 months ago

    what? Sorry, what does it mean? I cheated my way trough computer science - archeology / biology are not my expertise.

    • RandomStickman@fedia.io
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      40
      ·
      3 months ago

      I think it means we don’t know what the ancestors of those plants are/what they evolved from. They just kinda showed up in the fossil record.

      • Nurse_Robot
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        29
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        3 months ago

        Which, tbf, it’s a miracle enough of the fossil record exists as is. I’m sure there was a LOT that was lost to the sands of time

        • HonoraryMancunian
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          7
          ·
          3 months ago

          Iirc it’s reckoned most species likely aren’t known about because most places weren’t conducive to fossilisation

      • F_State@midwest.social
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        3 months ago

        Relatively few lifeforms end up fossilizing and then some of those fossils later get eroded. The percentage that make it to the present is low.

        • dudinax@programming.dev
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          3 months ago

          I’m no paleontologist but it seems like our total knowledge of certain eras comes from a few river banks collapsing on whatever lived there. That’s not going to be a great representation of all life at that time.

    • lemonskate
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      20
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      3 months ago

      That the fossil record is incomplete

    • TropicalDingdong
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      3 months ago

      Imagine you are trying to infer the structure of a tree by only know the positions of its leaves. Now imagine doing the same, but only 1/100 of the leaves are above ground.

      It’s only a small fraction living organisms which remain alive today. Most species and families which have ever been are extinct. And most are so old we could never do DNA work on them. Among the living, we can do some good DNA work and that’s made a huge difference. But then go back far enough and there are just massive nonconformities.

  • AeronMelon
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    11
    ·
    3 months ago

    “I can’t get… no… sleeeeep…”

    techno music