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It's got nothing to do with how long a species has been around. But no species survives in such a wide range of climates and habitats as humans.



> It's got nothing to do with how long a species has been around.

If you are talking about species to "ever live on this planet", then how long a species has been around being a pretty big factor in determining how adaptable a species is.

And in that regard, homo sapiens is rather a newcomer. Even our ancestors have only been around for a meager six million years.

While other species, many of them oceanic, have been around for hundreds of millions of years like sponges (580 million years) Jelly Fish (550 million years). Cyanobacterias are actually the oldest known living system in the world, originating 2.8 billion years ago, technically the oldest life on earth.

Compared to those, humanities existence is literally just a second on the clock of Earths history.


I've probably missed something obvious here, but what about Tardigrades and bacteria?




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