What could the first-ever living organism have used for food?

What could the first-ever living organism have used for food?

It was over two billion years before the Earth's first organisms stared eating other organisms. So if they weren't eating each other, what were they eating?


Asked by: John Corfield, Witheridge

For the first billion or so years of life on Earth, the only organisms were chemosynthetic bacteria, which grew as mats in shallow seas and by volcanic hydrothermal vents. The very first cells probably metabolised hydrogen sulphide and carbon monoxide. Eventually photosynthetic bacteria evolved and used sunlight to build sugars from carbon dioxide and water. Organisms that eat other organisms didn’t emerge until around 1.2 billion years ago – over two billion years after life first emerged.

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