3 min read During the Ordovician period, part of the Paleozoic era, a rich variety of marine life flourished in the vast seas and the first primitive plants began to appear on land—before the ...

Shark-like scales from the Late Ordovician have been found, but no teeth. If these were from sharks it would suggest that the earliest forms could have been toothless. Scientists are still debating if ...

The Paleozoic era's Silurian period saw animals and plants finally emerge on land. But first there was a period of biological regrouping following the disastrous climax to the Ordovician.

The Ordovician-Silurian mass extinction event may have wiped out some 85 percent of species, including many of the invertebrates this period is known for. Some scientists hypothesize the extinction ...

In the Late Ordovician era, they formed a symbiotic relationship with liverworts, the earliest plants. “Ultimately, fungi helped plants move away from being these marginal tiny little things on ...

“It extends the fossil record of [early land plants] by something like 20 million years. . . . Also, potentially [the fossils] provide a sort of intermediate between the Cambrian record and the later ...