Also cool that for a period of like 60 million years, nothing decomposed dead trees. As they would die or fall over, they’d just stay there, piling up. This is where most oil came from. The massive amounts of trees stacking up before bacteria and fungus evolved to decomposed them. Imagine 60 million years worth of trees just lying around.
On trees...
Submitted 4 weeks ago by fossilesque@mander.xyz to science_memes@mander.xyz
https://mander.xyz/pictrs/image/943f424d-9d77-46b1-b0c0-05206a6e49a7.jpeg
Comments
ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 4 weeks ago
Dogyote@slrpnk.net 4 weeks ago
Didn’t those trees become coal, not oil?
DancingBear@midwest.social 4 weeks ago
I think near water they became oil and fat from water they became coal
ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 4 weeks ago
Yes. I made mention of this in a reply to someone else as well. I’m not sure if my teacher (like 30 years ago) told us wrong or if I simply remembered it wrong.
turtlesareneat@discuss.online 4 weeks ago
Mushrooms are the great undertaker, the great decomposer. The Langoliers. They are just waiting to eat you, and they’re happy to share their fruits in the meantime. They’re fattening you up. They can wait.
voracread@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
That Langoliers reference spotted in the wild!
stabby_cicada@slrpnk.net 4 weeks ago
I imagine dead trees were flammable, even back then. And oxygen levels were 15% higher. Can you imagine the forest fires?
Ileftreddit@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
I thought that was coal
ravenaspiring@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
I love this fact, and am curious where you learned it?
ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 4 weeks ago
I learned it nearly 30 years ago in school. I just did a search and found a link about it, though.
Also, seems that either I remembered wrongly, or my teacher made a mistake, but it seems it was most of the worlds coal; not oil, that came from all the piles of trees from that period.
Anomalocaris@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
I’m a billion years, crabs will start turning into trees and trees into crabs. merging into the ubercreature
khannie@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
I’m a billion years
Damn. You look good for your age.
Comment105@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
I’d argue, but I agree. I don’t need to know how they look, if they’re a billion years and capable of communicating, whatever state they’re in looks good. Even if its a fungus posessed rot monster.
PlantDadManGuy@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
“ubercreature” excuse me, lichen would like a word with you
Atlas_@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
I imagine it’ll look like paras
multifariace@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Paras is a fungus. Totally different thing.
VernetheJules@hexbear.net 4 weeks ago
you may not like it but Ms Crabtree is what peak performance looks like
m_xy@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
here’s a cool blog post that expands on this There’s no such thing as a tree (phylogenetically)
i didn’t even put it in a folder, it’s just loose on my bookmark bar because it’s such an interesting post that i reread from time to time
Thadden@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
That was a very fun and interesting reading! Thanks for sharing
bananabenana@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Maybe…but I doubt many of these phylogenies use DNA, and if so, likely only a single or few genes. Nowhere near enough resolution to accurately determine genetic relatedness. Woody plants may actually be more related than we think.
These sorts of phylogenies tend to use morphological characteristics which is an unreliable measure of genetic relatedness.
I will stand corrected if wrong though
TachyonTele@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
Very cool read, thank you
hash@slrpnk.net 4 weeks ago
So that’s why every stargate planet looks like Canada
LeFantome@programming.dev 4 weeks ago
That and every Stargate planet is Vancouver
ravenaspiring@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
🤣🤣🤣
Deconceptualist@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
My sister in law recently quipped that “Trees are a social construct” and at first I thought she was just being glib but now I can’t get that statement out of my head.
resting_parrot@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
I listen to a podcast called Completely Arbortrary. They talk about a different tree species each episode. They say trees are a strategy, not a strict definition.
SOB_Van_Owen@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
Thanks! Just subscribed. See they have a couple Metasequoia episodes -a favorite of mine .
DeathsEmbrace@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
Its called convergent evolution and you also have some shit you wouldnt believe that makes all apes similar to us.
OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca 4 weeks ago
Apes are so similar to us because we came from a common ancestor. I’d love to hear if there are traits we evolved independently after we split though.
CooperRedArmyDog@lemmy.ml 4 weeks ago
Well humans are a type of great ape, sooooll
7bicycles@hexbear.net 4 weeks ago
I’m more of a middling ape myself honestly
TaiCrunch@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
Hit me. I love evolutionary fun facts.
sit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 weeks ago
smackkk
ArchmageAzor@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
I think palm trees are a kind of grass
IhaveCrabs111@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
I didn’t know that and I agree
fossilesque@mander.xyz 4 weeks ago
I’m firmly in this camp.
twice_hatch@midwest.social 4 weeks ago
Unsurpassable power: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crabtree
propter_hog@hexbear.net 4 weeks ago
Now we just need crabs to evolve a treecrab and we can have the two battle for the ultimate life form
mrslt@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
The absolute peak of evolution.
Slovene@feddit.nl 4 weeks ago
Good moaning!
whotookkarl@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Not to be confused with Dryococelus aka the “tree lobster”
miss_demeanour@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 weeks ago
So crabapple trees…?
skulblaka@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 4 weeks ago
evolution intensifies
NotASharkInAManSuit@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Also, no such thing as fish.
Google it.
boydster@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
Impossible. If there were no such thing as fish, how could bees be fish?
NotASharkInAManSuit@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
I don’t have the tools to know how to respond to this comment. You win.
MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml 4 weeks ago
Same for roots, btw, just earlier.
carpelbridgesyndrome@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
There are fern trees, conifer trees, and flowering trees. Where are my moss trees?
fossilesque@mander.xyz 4 weeks ago
RedAggroBest@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Except clubmoss isn’t moss iirc? They’re vascular and more of a fern than moss.
OpenStars@discuss.online 4 weeks ago
And it’s not even one creature or even type of creature. Look up rhizobium.
Tbf, as we learn more about our gut microbiomes, it turns out that humans are that way as well. Maybe that’s why we have the thoughts in our heads vs. the feelings in our guts… (no that’s actually not it at all, except… isn’t it though?).
Ledericas@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
theres also a definition of a what a tree in the sense , its develops wood, many things are tree like, but not trees: such as palms(just overgrown herbs), dracaena( aka cabbage tree, they have something dracenoid thickining.) extinct plants like giant lycophytes and ferns
ShimmeringKoi@hexbear.net 4 weeks ago
Its basically just the best way to be a large plant if you’re not gonna be a big parasitic ivy. Once your plant circulatory system gets complex enough to send stuff further away, you start getting big enough that you need hard tissues just to stop yourself from folding over.
Tiempo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 weeks ago
The future is gonna be tree with crabs…
TacoButtPlug@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
I wasn’t ready for how weird this comment section turned out to be…
BodyBySisyphus@hexbear.net 4 weeks ago
The genus Cornus is a huge middle finger to growth-form-based taxonomy. It contains dogwood trees and also bunchberry, an itty bitty herb that grows on the forest floor.
The first “trees” were also lycopods whose closest extant relatives are the club mosses, a name which gives you an idea of how big they get.
Hadriscus@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
altphoto@lemmy.today 4 weeks ago
So if you look at a tiny blade of grass and a gigantic tree its like looking at a Chihuahua and a brachiosaurus. And there are smaller things and bigger things in the aminal kingdum!
stebo02@sopuli.xyz 4 weeks ago
tbf isn’t a tree just a plant but big? makes sense that any plant species can evolve into a tree just by getting bigger
FistingEnthusiast@lemmynsfw.com 4 weeks ago
Fish too
Dogyote@slrpnk.net 4 weeks ago
Trees are like every other plant, ONLY MORE SO
IndiBrony@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Heh, branch
tamagotchicowboy@hexbear.net 4 weeks ago
Its trees and crabs all the way down.
rumschlumpel@feddit.org 4 weeks ago
I thought crab-like animals were all actually pretty closely related to each other, i.e. all crab-like animals are arthropods, which is a less broad category than ‘all the plants that can form a wooden trunk’. Any taxonomists here to confirm/deny?
OrteilGenou@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Concentrated sun energy sinks
obvs@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Or maybe the microorganisms and food sources that life forms are exposed to have more of an effect on how the macroorganisms evolve than is currently talked about, which would explain why so many things in similar environments evolve similar traits.
Pnut@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
By the logic we are not humans…
sun_is_ra@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
Had to look it up because I didnt beleive
sure enough its correct
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree
ch00f@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Something poetic and quaint about a link to a Wikipedia article titled “Tree”
FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
reddit has broken me. I was expecting it to point to weed.
k0e3@lemmy.ca 4 weeks ago
Scishow had an episode about it a week ago. It’s a strategy, not a species.