20 Mind-Bending Facts That Rewrite What We Think We Know

Before forests became the background of fairy tales, hiking trails, and family camping trips, the oceans already had ancient predators moving through them. Early shark-like fish appeared hundreds of millions of years ago, while true trees became common later, around the Devonian period. There was a stretch of Earth’s history when land did not yet have anything like the wooded landscapes we think of as natural, but marine life had already gone far down its own road. It is a strange image: oceans with long-established hunters, and continents still working toward forests.