On Fri, 21 Nov 2003 22:15:38 +0000 (UTC), Joachim Pense
 wrote:

>Guy Hoelzer wrote:
>
>> in article bpiri0$krf$1{at}darwin.ediacara.org, Red Dragon at
>> tasek{at}pc.jaring.my wrote on 11/20/03 8:53 AM:
>> 
>>> Does anybody  know the first life form on earth,
>> 
>> Not precisely.
>> 
>>> was it a plant or an animal
>>> in Charles Darwin 's origin of Species?
>> 
>> Darwin did not address this issue, but there is no question that the first
>> organism was neither a plant nor an animal.  It took billions of years of
>> evolution before either plants or animals arose.  The first organism would
>> clearly have been a single-celled, bacterium-like beast.
>> 
>
>But if it wasn't a plant, then it wasn't able to do photosynthesis. What
>did it feed on?
>

Lots of things (the many dfferent kinds of algae) or not "plants" and
are still autotrophs -- they feed themselves.

Still, the earliest living cells fed (derived energy) from the
chemical environment they lived in. An excellent paper (but highly
technical) paper describing a possible scenario is by Martin and
Russell "On the Origins of Cells" at
http://www.gla.ac.uk/projects/originoflife/html/2001/pdf_files/Martin_&_Russell.pdf
---
þ RIMEGate(tm)/RGXPost V1.14 at BBSWORLD * Info{at}bbsworld.com

---
 * RIMEGate(tm)V10.2áÿ* RelayNet(tm) NNTP Gateway * MoonDog BBS
 * RgateImp.MoonDog.BBS at 11/22/03 2:55:27 PM