Three truths
- Timed
- Branched off about 1.1 billion years ago · the last 26% of life's story
- Named
- ≈12,000 named living species · 0.7% of all named
- Weighed
- Not measured (no figure in Bar-On et al. 2018).
Eukaryotes · single-celled groups · phylum
Diatoms
Bacillariophyta
Living · roughly 12,000 described species
Single-celled algae that build intricate glass shells from silica. They carry out a large share of the photosynthesis in the oceans.
Glass-walled algae that make a large share of the oxygen you breathe.
Key characteristics
- Shells made of silica
- Major producers of oxygen in the ocean
- Their remains form diatomaceous earth
- Habitat
- Oceans, lakes and damp surfaces
- Branched off
- About 1.1 billion years ago (approximate)
- Parent lineage
- Stramenopiles
Classification
Sources
- Diatom (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