Biologically Diverse Haikus
Day 26 response: So many life forms, struggling on to procreate, sunlight on a pond…
Nature versus Nature
First Life eats Sunlight.
Second Life consumes First Life.
Circle of Life Starts.
The first life forms which we might recognize as living organisms were probably chemotrophs or phototrophs. Troph is Greek for eater, and chemo is Greek for chemical, so a chemotroph eats chemicals in its environment. Thus a phototroph is something that “eats” light. Like plants today. But the first life were not plants but closer to bacteria or single-celled algae. These first arose perhaps 3.7 billion or more years ago (at least that is the oldest rocks in which we’ve found fossil evidence suggesting life). For the first couple billion years, there were only single-celled phototrophs or chemotrophs.
Then, about a billion years ago, the first organism arose, which ate those simpler organisms. In order for one cell to eat another cell, biology required some machinery in which to effectively open the eating cell to engulf the prey cell. We have a mouth, which requires a mechanism, composed of a structure and a motor. We have a jaw bone that acts as the structure to support our digestive system's opening and closing…
