Three truths
- Timed
- Branched off about 3.0 billion years ago · the last 71% of life's story
- Named
- ≈200 named living species · 0.01% of all named
- Weighed
- Part of Archaea (≈7 Gt C), not measured separately.
Archaea · group
Methanogenic archaea
Methanogenic archaea (several lineages)
Living · roughly 200 described species
Archaea that release methane as part of their energy metabolism. This is a way of life shared by several archaeal lineages rather than a single branch of the tree.
They make methane, including much of the gas cows burp.
Key characteristics
- Live only where there is no oxygen
- Produce much of the methane from wetlands
- Live in the guts of cattle and termites
- Habitat
- Wetlands, sediments and animal guts
- Branched off
- About 3.0 billion years ago (approximate)
- Parent lineage
- Euryarchaeota
Classification
Sources
- Methanogen (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