Three truths
- Timed
- Began about 3.6 billion years ago · the last 86% of life's story
- Named
- ≈17,000 named living species · 1.0% of all named
- Weighed
- ≈70 Gt C · 13% of all life's carbon
Bacteria · domain
Bacteria
Living · roughly 17,000 described species
The date or placement of this group is still debated.
Single-celled organisms without a nucleus, found in almost every environment on Earth. They were among the first lineages to split from LUCA.
Key characteristics
- No nucleus; DNA floats in the cell
- Cell walls usually contain peptidoglycan
- Reproduce by splitting in two
- Habitat
- Everywhere: soil, water, air, deep rock and other organisms
- Branched off
- About 4.2 billion years ago (approximate)
- Parent lineage
- First common ancestor (LUCA)
Child lineages
Classification
Sources
- Bacteria (Wikipedia) · Wikipedia
- Three-domain system (Wikipedia) · Wikipedia
- TimeTree: the timescale of life · TimeTree
- Open Tree of Life · Open Tree of Life
- Tree of Life Web Project · Tree of Life Web Project