"created improved Norn genomes, such as the Canny Norn genome created by Chris Double and Lis Morris. Creatures 2 Creatures 2 is the second game in the Creatures artificial life game series made by Creature Labs, and the sequel to 1996 game ""Creatures"". It features three species: the cute, dependent Norns, the cantankerous Grendels and the industrious Ettins. The game tries to simulate life, and includes a complex two-dimensional ecology of plants, animals and insects, which provide the environment for the three main species to live and develop in. The player interacts with the world using a hand-shaped cursor, and"
"and even today make up the majority of animal species. Amphibians first appeared around 364 million years ago, followed by early amniotes and birds around 155 million years ago (both from ""reptile""-like lineages), mammals around 129 million years ago, homininae around 10 million years ago and modern humans around 250,000 years ago. However, despite the evolution of these large animals, smaller organisms similar to the types that evolved early in this process continue to be highly successful and dominate the Earth, with the majority of both biomass and species being prokaryotes. Estimates on the number of Earth's current species range"
"The same is true in the mollusca. Many hundreds of gastropod genera and species live in intermediate situations, such as for example, ""Truncatella"". Some gastropods with gills live on land, and others with a lung live in the water. As well as the purely terrestrial and the purely aquatic animals, there are many borderline species. There are no universally accepted criteria for deciding how to label these species, thus some assignments are disputed. Fossil evidence has shown that sea creatures, likely related to arthropods, first began to make forays on to land around 530 million years ago. There is little"
"Flying and gliding animals A number of animals have evolved aerial locomotion, either by powered flight or by gliding. Flying and gliding animals (""volant"" animals) have evolved separately many times, without any single ancestor. Flight has evolved at least four times, in the insects, pterosaurs, birds, and bats. Gliding has evolved on many more occasions. Usually the development is to aid canopy animals in getting from tree to tree, although there are other possibilities. Gliding, in particular, has evolved among rainforest animals, especially in the rainforests in Asia (most especially Borneo) where the trees are tall and widely spaced. Several"
"to terrestrial life has evolved independently and successfully many times by various groups of animals. Most terrestrial lineages originated under a mild or tropical climate during the Paleozoic and Mesozoic, whereas few animals became fully terrestrial during the Cenozoic. When excluding internal parasites, free living species in terrestrial environments are represented by the following ten phyla: flatworms (planarians), nemerteans (ribbon worms), nematodes (roundworms), rotifers, tardigrades (water bears), Onychophora (velvet worms), arthropods, mollusks (gastropods: land snails and slugs), annelids and chordates (tetrapods). Roundworms, tardigrades, and rotifers are microscopic animals that require a film of water to live in, and are not"
"another is that they functioned in parachuting, then gliding, then flight for originally arboreal insects. Pterosaurs were the next to evolve flight, approximately 228 million years ago. These reptiles were close relatives of the dinosaurs (and sometimes mistakenly considered dinosaurs by laymen), and reached enormous sizes, with some of the last forms being the largest flying animals ever to inhabit the Earth, having wingspans of over 9.1 m (30 ft). However, they spanned a large range of sizes, down to a 250 mm (10 in) wingspan in ""Nemicolopterus"". Birds have an extensive fossil record, along with many forms documenting both"
"it is most likely that the inventors decided to send a sheep, a duck, and a rooster aloft first. On 19 September 1783, the ""Aérostat Réveillon"" was flown with the first living beings in a basket attached to the balloon: a sheep called Montauciel (""Climb-to-the-sky""), a duck and a rooster. The sheep was believed to have a reasonable approximation of human physiology. The duck was expected to be unharmed by being lifted and was included as a control for effects created by the aircraft rather than the altitude. The rooster was included as a further control as it was a"
"the terrestrial plants. There is also unconfirmed evidence that arthropods may have appeared on land as early as 530 Ma. At the end of the Ordovician period, 443 Ma, additional extinction events occurred, perhaps due to a concurrent ice age. Around 380 to 375 Ma, the first tetrapods evolved from fish. Fins evolved to become limbs that the first tetrapods used to lift their heads out of the water to breathe air. This would let them live in oxygen-poor water, or pursue small prey in shallow water. They may have later ventured on land for brief periods. Eventually, some of"
"I was grateful that this was so. Broadcast 21 October 1998, the first episode looks at how birds first took to the skies in the wake of the insects. It begins in Mexico, where Attenborough observes bats being outmaneuvered by a red-tailed hawk. Pterosaurs were the birds' forerunners, some 150 million years after dragonflies developed the means of flight, but eventually became extinct together with the dinosaurs. Birds had by then already evolved from early forms like ""Archaeopteryx"", the first creature to possess feathers. Its ancestry can be traced through reptiles, and some current species, such as the flying lizard,"
"Evolution of birds The evolution of birds began in the Jurassic Period, with the earliest birds derived from a clade of theropoda dinosaurs named Paraves. Birds are categorized as a biological class, Aves. For more than a century, the small theropod dinosaur ""Archaeopteryx lithographica"" from the Late Jurassic period was considered to have been the earliest bird. Modern phylogenies place birds in the dinosaur clade Theropoda. According to the current consensus, Aves and a sister group, the order Crocodilia, together are the sole living members of an unranked ""reptile"" clade, the Archosauria. Four distinct lineages of bird survived the Cretaceous-Tertiary"
"the fossil record, as well as unique lineages that subsequently became extinct. Various triggers for the Cambrian explosion have been proposed, including the accumulation of oxygen in the atmosphere from photosynthesis. About 500 million years ago, plants and fungi colonised the land and were soon followed by arthropods and other animals. Insects were particularly successful and even today make up the majority of animal species. Amphibians first appeared around 364 million years ago, followed by early amniotes and birds around 155 million years ago (both from ""reptile""-like lineages), mammals around 129 million years ago, homininae around 10 million years ago"
"of plant life in the late Carboniferous and Permian. A noteworthy feature of Paleozoic life is the sudden appearance of nearly all of the invertebrate animal phyla in great abundance at the beginning of the Cambrian. The first vertebrates appeared in the form of primitive fish, which greatly diversified in the Silurian and Devonian Periods. The first animals to venture onto dry land were the arthropods. Some fish had lungs, and powerful bony fins that in the late Devonian, 367.5 million years ago, allowed them to crawl onto land. The bones in their fins eventually evolved into legs and they"
"contain the oldest known terrestrial animals, and Arthropleuridea, which contain the largest known land invertebrates. The earliest known land creature, ""Pneumodesmus newmani"", was a long archipolypodan that lived 428 million years ago in the upper Silurian, and has clear evidence of spiracles (breathing holes) attesting to its air-breathing habits. During the Upper Carboniferous (), ""Arthropleura"" became the largest known land-dwelling invertebrate on record, reaching lengths of at least . Millipedes also exhibit the earliest evidence of chemical defence, as some Devonian fossils have defensive gland openings called ozopores. Millipedes, centipedes, and other terrestrial arthropods attained very large sizes in comparison"
"that the earliest birds and their immediate ancestors did not climb trees. This study determined that the amount of toe claw curvature of early birds was more like that seen in modern ground-foraging birds than in perching birds. ""Archaeopteryx"" was the first and for a long time the only known feathered Mesozoic animal. As a result, discussion of the evolution of birds and of bird flight centered on ""Archaeopteryx"" at least until the mid-1990s. There has been debate about whether ""Archaeopteryx"" could really fly. It appears that ""Archaeopteryx"" had the brain structures and inner-ear balance sensors that birds use to"
"gliding: Bats are the only mammal with flapping or powered flight. A few other mammals glide or parachute; the best known are flying squirrels and flying lemurs. Flying and gliding animals A number of animals have evolved aerial locomotion, either by powered flight or by gliding. Flying and gliding animals (""volant"" animals) have evolved separately many times, without any single ancestor. Flight has evolved at least four times, in the insects, pterosaurs, birds, and bats. Gliding has evolved on many more occasions. Usually the development is to aid canopy animals in getting from tree to tree, although there are other"
"Fly Flies are insects with a pair of functional wings for flight and a pair of vestigial hindwings called halteres for balance. They are classified as an order called Diptera, that name being derived from the Greek δι- ""di-"" ""two"", and πτερόν ""pteron"" ""wings"". The order Diptera is divided into two suborders (although one suborder is non-monophyletic), with about 110 families divided between them; the families contain an estimated 1,000,000 species, including the familiar housefly, horse-fly, crane fly, and hoverfly; although only about 125,000 species have a species description published. The earliest fly fossils found so far are from the"
"wings may already have evolved at this time. Thus, the first insects probably appeared earlier, in the Silurian period. Four super radiations of insects have occurred: beetles (evolved about 300 million years ago), flies (evolved about 250 million years ago), and moths and wasps (evolved about 150 million years ago). These four groups account for the majority of described species. The flies and moths along with the fleas evolved from the Mecoptera. The origins of insect flight remain obscure, since the earliest winged insects currently known appear to have been capable fliers. Some extinct insects had an additional pair of"
"around 20 kilograms. Other structural adaptations of flying animals include reduced and redistributed body weight, fusiform shape and powerful flight muscles; there may also be physiological adaptations. Active flight has independently evolved at least four times, in the insects, pterosaurs, birds, and bats. Insects were the first taxon to evolve flight, approximately 400 million years ago (mya), followed by pterosaurs approximately 220 mya, birds approximately 160 mya, then bats about 60 mya. Rather than active flight, some (semi-) arboreal animals reduce their rate of falling by gliding. Gliding is heavier-than-air flight without the use of thrust; the term ""volplaning"" also"
"Dragonflies dwelled there. Yellow beetles dwelled there. Hard beetles dwelled there. Stone-carrier beetles dwelled there. Black beetles dwelled there. Coyote-dung beetles dwelled there. Bats dwelled there. Whitefaced beetles dwelled there. Locusts dwelled there. White locusts dwelled there. These were the twelve groups of the , the Air-Spirit People, who lived in the First World. Around the floating island were four seas. Each sea was ruled by a being. In the sea to the East dwelled , Big Water Creature, The One Who Grabs Things in the Water. In the sea to the south lived , Blue Heron. In the sea"
"since such animals simply fall to achieve minimum gliding speeds. Several small dinosaurs from the Jurassic or Early Cretaceous, all with feathers, have been interpreted as possibly having arboreal and/or aerodynamic adaptations. These include ""Scansoriopteryx"", ""Epidexipteryx"", ""Microraptor"", ""Pedopenna"", and ""Anchiornis"". ""Anchiornis"" is particularly important to this subject, as it lived at the beginning of the Late Jurassic, long before ""Archaeopteryx"". Analysis of the proportions of the toe bones of the most primitive birds ""Archaeopteryx"" and ""Confuciusornis"", compared to those of living species, suggest that the early species may have lived both on the ground and in trees. One study suggested"
"appendage off the body of an animal is probably patterned by the developmental genetic program that we have traced back to formation of gills in sharks"". Fish are the ancestors of all mammals, reptiles, birds and amphibians. In particular, terrestrial tetrapods (four-legged animals) evolved from fish and made their first forays onto land 400 million years ago. They used paired pectoral and pelvic fins for locomotion. The pectoral fins developed into forelegs (arms in the case of humans) and the pelvic fins developed into hind legs. Much of the genetic machinery that builds a walking limb in a tetrapod is"
"the exhibitions is a hands-on Exploration Station and the Paleo Dig Pit. Three changing exhibition galleries offer a variety of subjects. The evolution of flight—was it from the ground-up or from the tree down? AzMNH’s exhibition, ""Rulers of the Prehistoric Skies,"" helped to answer that question. The exhibit has since been removed, but the pterosaurs are still visible throughout the museum. At no other time in the history of life on Earth were there animals like the pterosaurs, those flying creatures who truly did rule the sky. They were the first vertebrates to achieve flight, and they did it in"
"Evolution of insects The most recent understanding of the evolution of insects is based on studies of the following branches of science: molecular biology, insect morphology, paleontology, insect taxonomy, evolution, embryology, bioinformatics and scientific computing. It is estimated that the class of insects originated on Earth about 480 million years ago, in the Ordovician, at about the same time terrestrial plants appeared. Insects evolved from a group of crustaceans. The first insects were land bound, but about 400 million years ago in the Devonian period one lineage of insects evolved flight, the first animals to do so. The oldest insect"
"viewpoints on the subject. The ""ground-up"" view holds that flight originated from theropod dinosaurs running along the ground, whereas the ""tree-down"" view holds that flight originated from animals who lived in trees ""as a means to extend their hops from branch to branch"". Hanson discusses the issue with Feduccia, who argues for the ""tree-down"" view, noting that other vertebrates also developed flight from the tree down. Hanson also discusses with Prum and Xu, who state that while the origin of ""feathers"" might have been ground-based theropods, the origin of ""flight"" could have been theropods who climbed trees, especially considering four-winged"
"modern day birds. Troodon: The Troodon, a very small bird-like dinosaur, grew to be up to in length, tall and only weighed up to 130 pounds. Living during the late Cretaceous Period, 75–66 million years ago. Originally thought to be carnivorous, modern evidence shows that it is possible that they were omnivorous or possibly an herbivore. Plesiosaurs: The Plesiosaurs were carnivorous aquatic reptiles. First appearing at the beginning of the Jurassic Period they thrived throughout the Cretaceous Period. They lived during the same time as the dinosaurs but were not dinosaurs, they are considered reptiles. Oviraptor: The Oviraptor, or ""Egg"
"The four main hypotheses are: There has also been debate about whether the earliest known bird, ""Archaeopteryx"", could fly. It appears that ""Archaeopteryx"" had the brain structures and inner-ear balance sensors that birds use to control their flight. ""Archaeopteryx"" also had a wing feather arrangement like that of modern birds and similarly asymmetrical flight feathers on its wings and tail. But ""Archaeopteryx"" lacked the shoulder mechanism by which modern birds' wings produce swift, powerful upstrokes; this may mean that it and other early birds were incapable of flapping flight and could only glide. The presence of most fossils in marine"
"birds part of Reptilia as well, thereby making Reptilia a monophyletic class, including all living Diapsids. The earliest known proto-reptiles originated around 312 million years ago during the Carboniferous period, having evolved from advanced reptiliomorph tetrapods that became increasingly adapted to life on dry land. Some early examples include the lizard-like ""Hylonomus"" and ""Casineria"". In addition to the living reptiles, there are many diverse groups that are now extinct, in some cases due to mass extinction events. In particular, the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event wiped out the pterosaurs, plesiosaurs, ornithischians, and sauropods, as well as many species of theropods, including troodontids,"
"Mammals and birds continued to be the dominant terrestrial vertebrates, and took many forms as they adapted to various habitats. The first hominins, the ancestors of humans, may have appeared in southern Europe and migrated into Africa. In response to the cooler, seasonal climate, tropical plant species gave way to deciduous ones and grasslands replaced many forests. Grasses therefore greatly diversified, and herbivorous mammals evolved alongside it, creating the many grazing animals of today such as horses, antelope, and bison. Eucalyptus fossil leaves occur in the Miocene of New Zealand, where the genus is not native today, but have been"
"to create variations on wild species. In some birds this is limited to color variations, while others are bred for larger egg or meat production, for flightlessness or other characteristics. Evolution of birds The evolution of birds began in the Jurassic Period, with the earliest birds derived from a clade of theropoda dinosaurs named Paraves. Birds are categorized as a biological class, Aves. For more than a century, the small theropod dinosaur ""Archaeopteryx lithographica"" from the Late Jurassic period was considered to have been the earliest bird. Modern phylogenies place birds in the dinosaur clade Theropoda. According to the current"
"go back to the first pre-Socratic Greek philosophers. Anaximander of Miletus (c. 610 – 546 BC) proposed that the first animals lived in water, during a wet phase of the Earth's past, and that the first land-dwelling ancestors of mankind must have been born in water, and only spent part of their life on land. He also argued that the first human of the form known today must have been the child of a different type of animal (probably a fish), because man needs prolonged nursing to live. In the late nineteenth century, Anaximander was hailed as the ""first Darwinist"","
"Jurassic; the mammals and the tritylodontids were the only survivors of the line by the end of the period. The main points to the transition from reptile to bird are the evolution from scales to feathers, the evolution of the beak (although independently evolved in other organisms), the hallofication of bones, development of flight, and warm-bloodedness. The evolution of birds is thought to have begun in the Jurassic Period, with the earliest birds derived from theropod dinosaurs. Birds are categorized as a biological class, Aves. The earliest known species in Aves is ""Archaeopteryx lithographica"", from the Late Jurassic period. Modern"
"which a fast-running terrestrial ancestor used wings for a speed boost and to help catch prey). Bats are the most recent to evolve (about 60 million years ago), most likely from a fluttering ancestor, though their poor fossil record has hindered more detailed study. Only a few animals are known to have specialised in soaring: the larger of the extinct pterosaurs, and some large birds. Powered flight is very energetically expensive for large animals, but for soaring their size is an advantage, as it allows them a low wing loading, that is a large wing areas relative to their weight,"
"(flies) and Coleoptera (beetles) — evolved in conjunction with flowering plants during the Cretaceous (145 to 66 million years ago). Many modern insect genera developed during the Cenozoic that began about 66 million years ago; insects from this period onwards frequently became preserved in amber, often in perfect condition. Such specimens are easily compared with modern species, and most of them are members of extant genera. Insect fossils are not merely impressions, but also appear in many other forms. Wings are a common insect fossil; they do not readily decay or digest, which is why birds and spiders typically leave"