ARCHAEFRUCTUS (Upload#3)


Archaefructus was an ancient aquatic and herbaceous angiosperm (or flowering plant) which lived approximately 125 million years ago in the Early Cretaceous in what is now Northeastern China, and whose position in the evolutionary tree of angiosperms is, as of yet, unclear.

It may have been a basal eudicot, suggesting that the history of angiosperms goes much farther back than we had previously thought. It may also be closer to Nymphaeales (water lilies and relatives). And finally, it also may've been one of the first ever angiosperms on Earth, solving Charles Darwin's "abominable mystery" regarding flowering plant evolution.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

INVERTEBRATE GALLERY (Upload#2)

Image
  From left to right on each line; * A grasshopper from the Eastern Black Sea region of Turkey * An approximate application of the golden ratio in a spiral mollusk shell * A generic trilobite illustration (Paleozoic Era) * A pill bug from the isopod suborder of Oniscidea * Spriggina floundersi (Late Ediacaran Period, Neoproterozoic Era, approx. 555 Ma) (position on the phylogenetic tree of animals is uncertain) * Mopalia muscosa (the mossy chiton, N. American Pacific Coast, marine mollusk inhabiting the intertidal zone) * Orthoceras (an extinct nautiloid cephalopod from the Middle Ordovician Period, 470-458 Ma) * the Nautilus
Read more