Tamreen @scriptor.bsky.social

for a sense of scale, the last time this happened plants evolved not a specific species or something. Literally just Plants

6 replies 69 reposts 242 likes

Pookleblinky @pookleblinky.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 03, 2024 at 02:56 UTC

Not quite: Mixotricha paradoxa, a gut protozoan in termites that digests cellulose for them, it *once* had mitochondria but gave them up in favor of a new endosymbiont. It has 5 different genomes due to having *multiple* endosymbionts cooperating.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixotri...

1 replies 1 reposts 6 likes

Public Universal Ally @returnofmccarthy.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 03, 2024 at 04:50 UTC

so a new kingdom?

1 replies 0 reposts 1 likes

Faine Greenwood @faineg.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 03, 2024 at 02:49 UTC

Whoa

0 replies 0 reposts 4 likes

Matthew Johnson @seasouthern.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 03, 2024 at 02:55 UTC

Probably completely misremembering but didn’t that lead to the largest extinction event in history as the proto-plants start pumping out oxygen which choked almost all the then existing living organisms?

1 replies 0 reposts 3 likes

Sharon Helms @sharonhelms.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 03, 2024 at 14:49 UTC

📌

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Gabriel S. Jacobs @gsjphd.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 03, 2024 at 06:40 UTC

Not even plants exactly! The Archaeplastida, the OG eukaryotic algae, which would later give rise to plants (and also to other groups of algae which stole their chloroplasts). This happened somewhere around 1.6 billion years ago. Land plants are maybe 0.5 billion years old, slightly less probably.

0 replies 0 reposts 1 likes