#spotted newt

A photo of a red eft, the terrestrial, juvenile stage of the eastern/red-spotted newt (Notophthalmus viridescens). Behind the eft are living lycopods (clubmoss), the oldest extant group of vascular plants, estimated to have evolved around 410 million years ago! To put this in perspective, amphibians didn’t show up in the fossil record until about 360 million years ago! Even closer to home, mammals only showed up around 120 million years ago; primates only 65 million years ago; the earliest humans (Homo spp.) only showed up about 2.3 million years ago; and Homo sapiens a mere 200,000 years ago. This means we’ve been around only 0.05% of the time the lycopods have. Thinking about this blows my mind in all sorts of amazing ways!!!