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That'd work. If there was ever a modern organism that could stand-in as a prehistoric counterpart, it's prokaryotes. Although they switch genes and mutate a lot, they haven't really evolved morphologically since the dawn of life, nor have they increased in complexity. The oldest fossils are still distinctly recognisable as cyanobacteria, which is quite remarkable.

@@PaleoEdits I was thinking about using cgi to recreate extinct species in a way that would mimic how real microscope footage looks, but that would definitely work too. There are quite a few interesting extinct microorganisms that don't really have modern counterparts, e.g Bicellum (I suppose you could possibly use a modern holozoan as a stand in but I believe that most are drastically different in morphology to Bicellum) or the inhabitants of the Limbunya group. Also, correct me if I'm wrong or misinterpreting what you're saying, but I believe that there are some fossils older than cyanobacterial ones, such as putative fossils from the Nuvvuagittuq belt and Onverwacht Group, with the former being at least 3.7 billion years old. I suppose they are only putative though. It is still quite remarkable that we're able to associate such ancient fossils with modern groups though.

​@@GoodrichthysEskdalensis To my knowledge, the oldest definitive fossil - the one that everyone agrees is a fossil - is 3.5 billion year old stromatolites, which as far as we know are structures only created by cyanobacteria. There is, however, a range of older indirect fossils or - perhaps - biochemical signatures that may be signs of life. Some biomarkers even stretch into the Hadean, beyond 4 BYA. But all of these are slightly controversial. The view that I subscribe to is that the best modern example of first life would be something more like 'green sulfur bacteria', not cyanobacteria (as far as bacteria go anyway, to say nothing of archaea). Not because of fossil evidence, but because of certain phylogenetic trees, what their krebs cycle looks like, and the extreme conditions these prokaryotes live in. If the hydrothermal vent hypothesis for the origin of life is true, then first life couldn't have used solar energy to drive metabolism. Althought, cyanobacteria may still have arisen relatively quickly. I wouldn't be surprised if the the major leaps in the evolution of prokaryotes is measured in thousands, rather than millions, of years. It also worth noting that when we go this far back in time, we really are entering a world of abstract. The hard geological evidence is scant and often heavily metamorphosed. Some of these questions may be better resolved in the lab than in the field.

@@PaleoEdits I think that there's some uncertainty with even those Stromatolites, though I've only done a cursory look into that area. If you have any papers on these specific stromatolites I'd appreciate you giving me their titles. If you don't already know about them, here are some papers on the putative organisms I mentioned earlier: Metabolically diverse primordial microbial communities in Earth’s oldest seafloor-hydrothermal jasper Evidence for early life in earth’s oldest hydrothermal vent precipitates Cellular remains in a ~3.42-billion-year-old subseafloor hydrothermal environment

@@GoodrichthysEskdalensis No, I haven't read any papers on the 3.5 BYA stromatolites but, they are commonly cited as the least controversial evidence in pretty much every literature I've read, from pop-science books (written by people in who work on in this field) to textbooks; and it was parroted as such in the geology courses I took in UNI. Hence why I parroted it. Though, there was definitely uncertanity with the fossils when they were first discovered. And I can imagine that even "least controversial" would still have some controversy to this day. After all, we're dealing with potential fossils that are almost as old as Earth's oldest remaining rock!

I mean there are FAR more than two missed glaciations if you really want to get into it, but then there would be a lot of quick white flashing in the paleozoic and various precambrian eras. The carboniferous glaciation, for example, was extremely expansive, but would have distracted from the perhaps more important evolutionary leaps. If this was a 10 min timelapse of just the phanerzoic then I might have included it. I decided to mainly give snowball earth attention, as it's most significant one, and it doesn't distract too much attention from other stuff that might have been a more important focus of that particular time. You might argue that there was another snowball earth around the time of great oxidiation event. And while there is evidence of glaciation, it is disputed if it was really of "snowball earth" level. And anyways, the great oxidiation would have been a important focus in this extremely compressed timelapse, IMO.

@@PaleoEdits I was referring to both the Huronian glaciation (the one after the GOE) and the Pangola glaciations, although I've her far less of the latter so I am unsure of the current consensus on it. You're definitely right though, there are far more than two missed ones. I was under the impression that the Huronian glaciation (s) was widely agreed to have been comparable to the Cryogenian ones in scale though. Interesting to know!

I don't know about that but, I'm glad you seemed to have enjoyed the edit!

Yeah, the suite is great! Perhaps after Surviving Earth or when ever we get more prehistoric mammal content to work from.

From the behind the scenes photos, it at least hints like they will be taking the completely un-modern flora & funga of the Devonian and Carboniferous seriously.

@@PaleoEdits That's a good sign. I'm looking forward to it.

@@penguinagents2015 Me too :)

You should check out the overlooked but far superior documentary Earth: One Planet Many Lives, also from 2023. It's far more unique/creative in that it spends 2/5 of the show in the Precambrian, 2/5 in the Paleozoic and 1/5 in Mesozoic and Cenozoic, and focuses just as much (if not more) on plants than animals. Although, the show (Earth) is more interested in the larger biosphere and geoscience than "look, here is a cool prehistoric creature fighting" so the approach is understandable.

@@PaleoEdits It seems interesting, but I don't think I'll be able to watch it. What exactly does it cover in the precambrian, anyways? I know it's got banded iron formations in it because you feature that in one of your edits but what else does it have?

​@@GoodrichthysEskdalensis Hadean Earth, origin of life, cyanobacteria, great oxidation event, Snowball Earth, rodinia and plate tectonics, early multicelluar life, Ediacaran fauna etc. One episode is dedicated the evolution of the Earth's atmosphere. Another to snowball earth. One episode tells the story of how life evolved on earth but through the perspective of plants isntead of animals, starting with the origin of life and ending in the carboniferous, if I recall correctly.

@@PaleoEdits Very cool

Well if life on earth has already survived five mass extinctions, why not a sixth?