Horseshoe crabs are considered to be the most ancient animals living on Earth - aquatic chelicerates from the class merostomaceae. On this moment four are known modern looking these arthropods. They live in the shallow waters of tropical seas South-East Asia And Atlantic coast North America. Horseshoe crabs appeared on our planet approximately 450 million years ago.
Neopilin cephalopods originated on Earth 355-400 million years ago. They live in the Pacific, Indian and Atlantic Oceans at depths from 1800 to 6500 meters. These creatures were discovered only in 1957.
Coelacanths are the only one modern gender Lobe-finned fish are still considered living fossils today. Now there are only two types of coelacanths - one lives in the eastern and south coast Africa, and the second was first described only in 1997-1999. near the island of Sulawesi in Indonesia.
Interestingly, at the moment, scientists do not know what a young coelacanth looks like and where young fish live for the first few years of their lives - not a single young individual was identified during dives. It is believed that coelacanths originated on Earth 300-400 million years ago.
Cockroaches appeared on our planet about 320 million years ago and have been actively spreading since then - scientists currently know more than 200 genera and 4,500 species.
The remains of cockroaches are, along with the remains of cockroaches, the most numerous traces of insects in Paleozoic deposits.
The oldest surviving to this day large predator is a crocodile. However, it is considered the only surviving species of crurotarsians - a group that also included a number of dinosaurs and pterosaurs. It is believed that crocodiles appeared on Earth approximately 250 million years ago.
Crocodiles are common in all tropical countries, living in a variety of fresh water bodies; relatively few species are tolerant of salt water and are found in coastal seas ( Nile crocodile, saltwater crocodile, African narrow-snouted crocodile).
The first crocodiles lived mainly on land and only later moved on to life in the water. All modern crocodiles are adapted to a semi-aquatic lifestyle - living in water, they, however, lay eggs on land.
Small crustaceans of the class of branchiopods appeared on Earth 220-230 million years ago, when dinosaurs still lived on the planet. Shield bugs are small creatures and are rarely longer than 12 cm, however due to unique system they managed to survive.
The fact is that shieldfish live in stagnant water of temporary fresh water bodies, due to which they are spared natural enemies and in their niche they are at the top of the ecological pyramid.
Hatterias, a type of reptile, are the only modern representative ancient order of beaked heads. They live only on a few islands of New Zealand, although on the North and South Islands Hatterias are already extinct.
These reptiles grow up to 50 years, and the average life expectancy is 100 years. It is believed that they originated on the planet 220 million years ago, and now tuataria are included in the IUCN Red List and have protective status vulnerable species.
The Nephila spider is not only considered the oldest on the planet - scientists believe that this genus originated about 165 million years ago - but it is also the largest web-weaving spider. These spiders live in Australia, Asia, Africa, America and the island of Madagascar.
Interestingly, fishermen collect Nephila webs, form them into a ball, which they then throw into the water to catch fish.
We all know from school that many ancient animals that once inhabited the planet have long since become extinct. But did you know that there are now animals on Earth that saw dinosaurs? And then there are animals that have been around longer than the trees these dinosaurs ate the leaves from. However, many of these ancient representatives of the fauna have remained virtually unchanged over the millions of years of their existence. Who are these old-timers on our Earth and what is so special about them?
1. Jellyfish
The first place in our “rating” is rightfully occupied by jellyfish. Scientists believe that jellyfish appeared on earth about 600 million years ago.The most big jellyfish, which the man caught, had a diameter of 2.3 meters. Jellyfish do not live long, about a year, because they are a delicacy for fish. Scientists are puzzling over how jellyfish perceive nerve impulses from the organs of vision, because they do not have a brain.
2. Nautilus
Nautiluses have lived on Earth for more than 500 million years. This cephalopods. Females and males differ in size. The nautilus shell is divided into chambers. The mollusk itself lives in the largest chamber, and uses the remaining compartments, filling or pumping out with biogas, as a float for diving to depth.
3. Horseshoe crabs
These marine arthropods are rightfully considered living fossils, because they have lived on Earth for more than 450 million years. To give an idea of how long this is, horseshoe crabs are older than trees.
It was not difficult for them to survive all the known global disasters, practically unchanged in appearance. Horseshoe crabs can rightfully be called animals " blue bloods" Their blood, unlike ours, is blue, because it is saturated with copper, and not iron, like human blood.
The blood of horseshoe crabs has amazing properties- when it reacts with microbes, clots are formed. This is how horseshoe crabs create a barrier against germs. A reagent is made from the blood of horseshoe crabs and used to test medications for purity.
4. Neopilins
Neopilina is a mollusk that has lived on Earth for approximately 400 million years. He hasn't changed in appearance. Neopilins live on great depths in the oceans.5. Coelacanth
Coelacanth is a modern fossil animal that appeared on our planet approximately 400 million years ago. Over the entire period of its existence, it has remained virtually unchanged. At the moment, coelacanth is on the verge of extinction, so catching these fish is strictly prohibited.
6. Sharks
Sharks have existed on Earth for more than 400 million years. Sharks are very interesting animals. People have been exploring them for many years and never cease to be amazed at their uniqueness.For example, a shark’s teeth grow throughout its life, the most big sharks can reach 18 meters in length. Sharks have an excellent sense of smell - they can smell blood at a distance of hundreds of meters. Sharks practically do not feel pain, because their body produces a certain “opium” that dulls pain.
Sharks are amazingly adaptable. For example, if there is not enough oxygen, they can “shut down” part of the brain and use less energy. Sharks can also regulate the salinity of water by producing special means. Shark vision is several times better than that of cats. IN dirty water they can see up to 15 meters away. 
7. Cockroaches
These are real old-timers on Earth. Scientists say that cockroaches have inhabited the planet for more than 340 million years. They are hardy, unpretentious and fast - this is what helped them survive during the most turbulent periods of history on Earth.Cockroaches can live for some time without a head - after all, they breathe with the cells of the body. They are excellent runners. Some cockroaches run about 75 cm in a second. This is very good result relative to their height. And their incredible endurance is evidenced by the fact that they can withstand radiation almost 13 times more than humans.
Cockroaches can live without water for about a month, without water for a week. Their female retains the male's seed for some time and can fertilize herself.
8. Crocodiles
Crocodiles appeared on Earth about 250 million years ago. Surprisingly, crocodiles first lived on land, but then they liked to spend a significant part of their time in the water.Crocodiles are amazing animals. They don't seem to do anything for nothing. To make food easier to digest, crocodiles swallow stones. This also helps them dive deeper.
There is a natural antibiotic in the crocodile's blood that helps them not get sick. Average duration Their lifespan is 50 years, but some individuals can live up to 100 years. Crocodiles cannot be trained and can be considered the most dangerous animals on the planet.
9. Shchitni
Shchitni appeared on Earth during the period of dinosaurs approximately 230 million years ago. They live almost all over the world, except Antarctica.Surprisingly, the shields have not changed in appearance, they only became smaller in size. The largest scale insects were found measuring 11 cm, the smallest - 2 cm. If the scale insects are hungry, cannibalism is possible among them.
10. Turtles
Turtles inhabited the Earth approximately 220 million years ago. Turtles differ from their ancient ancestors in that they have no teeth and have learned to hide their heads. Turtles can be considered long-lived. They live up to 100 years. They see, hear, and have a keen sense of smell. Turtles remember human faces.If the temperature in the nest where the female laid eggs is high, females will be born; if it is low, only males will be born.
11. Hatteria
Hatteria is a reptile that appeared on Earth more than 220 million years ago. Now the tuataria live in New Zealand.Hatteria looks like an iguana or lizard. But this is just a similarity. Hatterias established a separate detachment - beak-headed. This animal has a “third eye” on the back of its head. Tuttaria have slow metabolic processes, so they grow very slowly, but they can easily live up to 100 years.
12. Spiders
Spiders have lived on Earth for more than 165 million years. The oldest web was found in amber. Her age became 100 million years. A female spider can lay several thousand eggs at a time - this is one of the factors that has helped them survive to this day. Spiders have no bones; their soft tissues are covered by a hard exoskeleton.The web could not be made artificially in any laboratory. And those spiders that were sent into space spun three-dimensional webs.
It is known that some spiders can live up to 30 years. Biggest famous spider has a length of almost 30 cm, and the smallest is half a millimeter.
13. Ants
Ants are amazing animals. It is believed that they have lived on our planet for more than 130 million years, while practically not changing their appearance.Ants are very smart, strong and organized animals. We can say that they have their own civilization. They have order in everything - they are divided into three castes, each of which does its own thing.
Ants are very good at adapting to circumstances. Their population is the largest on Earth. To imagine how many there are, imagine that there are about a million ants per inhabitant of the planet. Ants are also long-lived. Sometimes queens can live up to 20 years! They are also amazingly smart - ants can teach their fellows to look for food.
14. Platypuses
Platypuses have lived on Earth for more than 110 million years. Scientists suggest that at first these animals lived in South America, but then they got to Australia. In the 18th century, the skin of platypuses was first seen in Europe and was considered... a fake.Platypuses are excellent swimmers; they easily obtain food from the river bottom using their beaks. Platypuses spend almost 10 hours a day underwater.
Platypuses could not be bred in captivity, but in wildlife Today there are quite a few of them left. Therefore, animals are listed in the International Red Book.
15. Echidna
The echidna can be called the same age as the platypus, because it has inhabited the Earth for 110 million years.Echidnas look like hedgehogs. They boldly guard their territory, but when in danger they burrow into the ground, leaving only a bunch of needles on the surface.
The echidna does not have sweat glands. In hot weather they move little; in cold weather they can hibernate, thus regulating their heat exchange. Echidnas are long-lived. In nature they live up to 16 years, and in zoos they can live up to 45 years.
I wonder if a person can live on Earth for that long?
For many of us, the world of ancient animals seems like herds of dinosaurs or, in as a last resort, mammoths. In fact, it is much more diverse and fantastic. Our planet was inhabited by millions of creatures, most of which disappeared forever from the face of the Earth, leaving us with only their fossil remains, fossilized traces, drawings of ancient people, or nothing at all. But each of them served as a building block of a great kingdom called flora and fauna.
Fantastic Beasts
Ancient animals began their existence in the form of spineless microorganisms long before the appearance of Homo sapiens. This is what official science says. Unofficial, based on hundreds of artifacts found in different corners Earth, believes that before the advent of our civilization there were others, no less developed than us. Of course, then not only people lived, but also animals. It is almost impossible to determine what they were. The only thing left of them is a mention in ancient manuscripts and myths of all kinds of dragons, elves, incredible monsters, and unicorns. However, there is the only museum in the world where the exhibits are real, as its workers claim, remains of unicorns, mermaids and other strange creatures. Among them there are fragments of dragons, mermaids, mythical two-headed snakes and other monsters recovered by enthusiastic archaeologists from the bowels of the Earth.
How it all began
The official science of paleontology adheres to the theory that life originated in the Precambrian period. This is the most impressive period of time, which accounts for 90% of the duration of existence of all living things. It lasted almost 5 billion years, from the beginning of the formation of the Earth to the Cambrian. At first there was no atmosphere, no water, nothing, not even volcanoes on our planet.
Gloomy and lifeless, she silently rushed along her orbit. This period is called Katarchean. 4 billion years ago it was replaced by Archaean, which was marked by the appearance of an atmosphere, albeit with virtually no oxygen. At the same time, the first seas arose, which were acid-salt solutions. It was in these terrible conditions that life began. The oldest animal on Earth is cyanobacteria. They lived in colonies, forming films or layered mats on the substrate. The memory of them is calcareous stromatolites.
Continuation of life development
The Archean lasted 1.5 billion years. Cyanobacteria filled the atmosphere with oxygen and ensured the emergence of hundreds of new species of microorganisms, thanks to whose vital activity we have mineral deposits.
Approximately 540 million years ago, the Cambrian began, which lasted 55-56 million years. Its first era is the Paleozoic. This Greek word means " ancient life"("Paleo Zoe"). In the Paleozoic, the first and unified
continent of Gondwana. The climate was warm, close to subtropical, which was ideal for the development of life. Then it existed mainly in water. Its representatives were not only single-celled organisms, but also entire systems of algae, polyps, corals, hydras, ancient sponges and other things. These ancient animals gradually ate all those who formed the stromatolites. During the same period, they began to develop land.
Ancient plants
It is believed that plants were the first to reach land. At first it was algae from shallow waters that dried up from time to time. are considered the first plants on the planet. They were replaced by psilophytes. They did not yet have roots, but tissues already existed that carried water and nutrients through the cells. Then horsetails, mosses and ferns appeared. In size, these plants were real giants, the height of a 10-story building. It was gloomy and very humid in their forests. The first gymnosperms arose not from ferns, but from pteridophytes, which already had roots, bark, pith and crown. During the glaciation, the ancestors of gymnosperms became extinct. Angiosperms appeared in They significantly displaced their ancestors - gymnosperms, changing the appearance of the planet and becoming the ruling class.
First sunrise and first sunset
The appearance of plants on land contributed to the emergence and development of insects. The oldest animal in sushi is the arachnid. a prominent representative which is the armored spider. Later, winged insects appeared, and then amphibians. By the end of the Paleozoic, reptiles, which had very impressive sizes, dominated the land. Among them are three-meter pareiasaurs, pelycosaurs that grew up to 6.5 meters, and therapsids. The latter were the most numerous class, having in their ranks both small representatives and giants. About 252 million years ago there was a worldwide natural disaster, which resulted in the complete disappearance of 70% of all land animals, 96% sea creatures and 83% insects. It happened in Permian period. It ended the Paleozoic and began the Mesozoic. It lasted as much as 185-186 million years. The Mesozoic includes the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. Ancient animals and plants that survived the disaster continued to develop. From the second half of the Triassic to the end of the Mesozoic, dinosaurs took dominant positions.
Gentlemen dinosaurs
These reptiles numbered more than a thousand species, the remains of ancient animals help to identify and study them. The most important is the Staurikosaurus, whose body length was less than a meter and weighed about 30 kg. Later, Errorosaurus, Eoraptor, Plesiosaur, Tyrannosaurus and others appeared. They completely mastered the land, the world's oceans, and took to the air. The most famous of the flying lizards is the pterodactyl. There were many types of them, from little ones the size of a sparrow to giants with a wingspan of 12-13 meters. They ate fish, insects and their fellow creatures. In 1964, during excavations, the remains of a creature called Deinonychus were found. This was the first warm-blooded dinosaur. Presumably he was the ancestor of birds, since he had plumage.
Dinosaurs are amazing ancient animals. Many consider them stupid and primitive, but they knew how not only to lay eggs, but also to hatch them, carefully care for their offspring, protecting and teaching their children. And pelycosaurs were the ancestors of the first mammals.
Kingdom Mammals
About 65 million years ago, at the end of the Mesozoic, another terrible disaster, as a result of which all dinosaurs became extinct. Most species of mollusks, aquatic reptiles, and plants also disappeared. And again the death of some gave rise to the emergence and development of others. Warm-blooded mammals went through a long evolution and gradually populated all natural niches. This happened in the Cenozoic, which replaced the Mesozoic. In its ongoing existence, a man appeared. Ancient animals of the Earth that survived natural disasters, were exterminated primitive people at the dawn of humanity and by Homo sapiens in the recent past. So, by 1500, everyone was killed. At the end of the 17th century, dodos, dodos, and aurochs ceased to exist. In the 18th century, the last one was killed. In the 19th, the last quagga, which resembled a zebra, died, and in the 20th, the Tasmanian wolf. And that's just small part impressive list.
Unusual Finds
All these animals were destroyed by human greed. However, there are many in the world wonderful people who care about the conservation of existing species on Earth and undertake expeditions to discover new ones. Enthusiasts believe that not all ancients. There is even a science - cryptozoology, which deals with unusual relict species. The most famous of them are the plesiosaur and the Puerto Rican chupacabra. Skeptics do not believe in their existence, but relatively recently no one believed in the existence of okapi, pygmy hippos, lobe-finned fish, dwarf deer and other animals discovered in the 18th-20th centuries. As if to confirm that new discoveries are yet to come, people find extraordinary skeletons or fragments of bodies of creatures unknown to science that are waiting to be described and classified.
Recently I became interested in the question of what is the oldest sport on earth and when the first competitions began to take place in any sport and people (fans) gathered to watch it to find out who would be the winner. I dug into various sources, starting from Wikipedia and the online library of SFU University and found out which sports are the most ancient.
Many sites write that it is the oldest game on earth" Pitz"Which was played by one of the ancient Mayan peoples. A peculiar game somewhat reminiscent of football in modern world-players were divided into several teams and tried to get into a special hole located on the enemy’s side. After the defeat, a new ball was made from the head of the elders. But actually it is not.
1. American scientists during excavations in the Sibudu cave in South Africa They found in the sediments traces of arrowheads and spears that were used to shoot at special targets attached to the wall. Based on the tracks, it turned out that there were many tracks and the arrows entered the targets with different forces and along different trajectories, which indicates that there were several shooters. And it is quite possible that the shooters competed with each other in the so-called " hunting sport"According to scientists' research, these traces were left more than 60,000 years ago
2. many rock paintings found in other caves in Europe depicted run And struggle more 17,000 years back.
3.Other cave paintings on walls in Libya prove that 6000 BC. people have also already competed archery
4.Also in Japan, around the same time, images were found very similar to one of the ancient sports Sumo wrestling
5. Were discovered in ancient Sumer various drawings fight between people on stone slabs that appeared around 2600 BC
6. And only in 2500 BC information was discovered that the Mayans played " Pitz"
7. Many believe that the ancestor of the most ancient event Olympic Games is Greece, but in fact it is not, the first competition in javelin throwing, wrestling, fishing, long jump, rowing and so on appeared back in ancient Egypt IN 2000 BC
8.In 1600-1100 BC. Already in ancient Greece competitions were held between athletes. Initially, these competitions were held at the funerals of noble people, but later they grew into larger ones - into large-scale competitions that later became Olympic sports. Competitions were held between participants running, javelin throwing, discus throwing, long jump and in various other disciplines.
Result: From the above, one thing can be said for sure: one of the most ancient sports was javelin-throwing And archery, which for certain reasons is understandable! These skills were necessary for people to survive. And the highest mastery of these “sports” guaranteed the owner’s survival. But since people couldn’t figure it out among themselves who should be taken hunting and who shouldn’t!? Only a fight between people could show who is best at these ancient sports.
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