Insects Evolved Much Earlier than Previously Supposed

Now that humans have developed highly sophisticated supercomputers we are currently facing potential strides in human knowledge that go well beyond what intellectuals of all sorts had initially predicted.  For instance, we are now capable of using advanced computer programs that allow us to better map out the evolutionary tree.  We have recently learned that insects have actually evolved much earlier than we had thought, which our current timeline puts at 479 million years ago. In addition to this recent discovery, we also now know that insects developed concurrently with the earliest plant life.

The highly advanced software being used by entomologists and various other types of scientists around the world have allowed for a near complete genetic mapping of all insect species in the world. It now seems as though insects have played just as important a role in shaping our ecosystem as plants have.  There is no ecosystem in the world, excepting in Antarctica, in which insects have not played an instrumental role in allowing for the evolutionary development of nearly all life as we know it.  For another example, flowering plants could not have developed without winged insects, as our new timeline shows.

Insects are the pioneer architects of the world as we recognize it today.  Everything you see and touch is only possible because of hundreds of millions of years of insect activity.  Pretty heavy!

Did you know how much the evolution of our world depended on insects? Can you imagine what life might be like if insects had never existed?