Question: how have cells adapted into plant cells/animals...

Matthew Pankhurst answered on 22 Jun 2013:

It’s the big question of how life has evolved though time, and occupies lots of scientists working out the details! Basically if a cell is “good enough”, it will survive, and divide and reproduce and therefore you get the next generation made of that cell. If it doesn’t – you never see it again! Our current understanding is that the first living things on earth were single cells, and over time mutations in the DNA caused one of these cells to make another of itself and stick together, this worked well for whatever reason and multi-celled organisms grew more and more complex over time as the DNA mutated and made the organisms different. What makes a living thing “good enough” is how well suited it is to its environment, so this “weeds out” the ones that just aren’t suited. We think animals came along before plants – plants have a very special adaptation that allows them to use sunlight instead of chemical energy and the very first plants were those that evolved from a sort of bacteria that could do this while inside another cell. Check out this for details
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_history_of_plants
Of course, those earliest animals were nothing like the ones that run around on top of the Earth now, although some of those earliest kinds still are around and haven’t changed all that much….
Here’s one of my favorite ancient life forms – that you can find in Australia!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stromatolite
Wouldn’t if be cool to get an energy boost from the sun! It’d mean we’d have to have green bits of us though… but I’m cool with that…