They take carbon dioxide dissolved in water, use sunlight as energy to turn that carbon dioxide into sugars and then use those sugars as their food. You may have heard that plants go through something called photosynthesis. For a bit of perspective, that was long before dinosaurs roamed Earth between 230 million and 65 million years ago.Įven though cyanobacteria are very small, they have a really important job. One of the oldest fossil records of cyanobacteria was found in Australia. He told me that cyanobacteria have been around even longer than barnacles. He teaches marine biology at Washington State University.īerger studies barnacles, which have been on the planet for about 500 million years. I learned about these long-lived bacteria from my friend Michael Berger. If you’ve ever seen the surface of a pond or lake covered in bright green slime, there’s a chance you may have seen a big colony of cyanobacteria. They can live in hot springs and even the chilly temperatures of Antarctica.
We can find them living on rocks, in soil, lakes, ponds and the ocean. Just like some other types of bacteria, cyanobacteria can come in different shapes and sizes: spirals, spheres and rods. While you are made up of billions of cells, a cyanobacterium is one tiny cell. It is so small you would likely need a microscope to see it: cyanobacteria. While these living things have been around a long time, there is one organism that has outlasted pretty much all others. These fossil records can provide us with clues about bones, plants, shells and even bacteria. We know that creatures like jellyfish, lampreys and sea urchins have been around about that long, too. Horseshoe crabs, velvet worms and sea sponges have been found in fossils that are hundreds of millions of years old.
We know about them from fossil records, imprints or remains that we find in rock. There are many kinds of creatures that lived on Earth long ago, and their relatives still exist today. What creature has lived on Earth the longest and is still alive today? – Tracie, 12, Singapore
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