Sharks Predate Trees Evolutionarily

While the first primitive, low-growing plants began to colonize land, Earth's continents were still largely barren and rocky. In the oceans, however, life was flourishing in an era known as the Devonian Period, or the "Age of Fishes." It was in these ancient seas that the ancestors of modern sharks first appeared, becoming formidable predators. For an almost incomprehensible 50 million years, these sharks swam through oceans while the terrestrial world above remained devoid of a single forest.

The arrival of the first true trees, like Archaeopteris, was a revolutionary event that began to transform the planet's landscape and atmosphere. Yet, by the time these pioneering forests took root, sharks were already a well-established and diverse group. Their evolutionary design proved so successful that it has carried them through the ages. Sharks have witnessed the rise and fall of the dinosaurs (Review) and survived all five of the planet's major mass extinction events, each of which wiped out a majority of life on Earth. Their incredible lineage makes them living fossils, true survivors whose existence long predates the familiar green canopy of our world.