HOMEWORK HELP! is it true that the first living things were probably jellyfish?

Answer 1

No, the first living things were actually a type of one celled organisms which could survive under extreme conditions such as heat vents beneath the ocean. It took millions of years before these organisms evolved into anything as complex as a jellyfish.

Answer 2

What was the first life depends on one's definition of life.

We look for that WOW moment, but there really wasn't one. Atoms, elements and molecules interact chemically whether independently or as part of large, complex units. All of what we consider life is animation of matter fueled by chemical reaction.

Is the combination of nitrogen with other elements in the form of amines life? How about the combination of amines and carbon, oxygen and hydrogen that form amino acids? Or the proteins formed from amino acids, or energy derived from the oxidation of amino acids, or special proteins called enzymes that catalyze chemical reactions to release energy? What about nucleic acids such as DNA and RNA, are they living if they replicate themselves?

If catalyzing and replicating proteins floated about freely would that be life? What if they were enclosed in a membrane known as a cell? What if that cell divided in two and those two divided into four cells and so-on? What if the cell membrane could absorb "fuel" chemicals and expell "waste" chemicals?

You see the process continues and grows. There's no magic moment that life was "born". There isn't even a universal definition of life. For example, the virus, that type of infectious organism responsible for so many devastating diseases, doesn't meet the common requirements of a cellular organism capable of internal metabolism.

But, to answer your question, the oldest life known from fossil records is similar to bacteria and algae. A jellyfish is considerably more complex than the single celled organisms commanly referred to as the first life on earth.

Answer 3

Well. The answer is simply no.

Now, as for the matter of the first living organism, most of the previous answers, if not all, are but mere conjectures.

Phylogenetically, all known life forms theoretically derive from an unknown common ancestor (LUCA). But even this was probably not the first living organism.

The first living organism might have been formed from self replicating nucleic acids, but then again, this is too a conjecture itself.

Answer 4

Of course not there were a bunch of one-celled organisms that preceded it; they aren't even the first animals either as sponges probably preceeded jellyfish

Answer 5

There were much simpler forms of life before jellyfish

Answer 6

No. The first living things were single-celled, and jellyfish are not single-celled.

Answer 7

All I know is my Uncle is a Jellyfish!

Answer 8

I don't beleive so. I am sure that the first living organisms were single celled animals, not anythng as complex as a jelly fish.

Answer 9

It wouldn't surprise me!- Judging by all of the "jellyfish" that are STILL among us! :)

Answer 10

Probably one-celled organisims would have been the first life.