Fossil

Sharks appeared on Earth before Trees. The oldest known shark scale Fossils date to about 450 million years ago in the late Ordovician period, while the first trees only appeared around 385 million years ago in the Devonian. Sharks predate trees by roughly 65 million years.

A rhinoceros horn contains no bone. It is a tightly packed bundle of hair, made of the same keratin found in fingernails. This is why rhinoceros fossils show no trace of their iconic horns.

Metasequoia was known only from fossils over 150 million years old until living specimens were confirmed in China in 1946. Only about 4,000 trees remained at the time, and every metasequoia in the world today descends from them.