Q.Evolution of life shows that life forms had a trend of moving from:
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Start your 14-day free trial to unlock the full solution →The fossil record and evolutionary biology show that life first arose in water and later moved onto land — the correct trend is from water to land.
The question touches on one of the grandest narratives in the history of life on Earth: the transition from aquatic to terrestrial existence. When we look at the fossil record, the earliest evidence of life comes from marine sediments, dating back over 3.5 billion years. For the vast majority of Earth's history, life was exclusively aquatic. The first organisms — bacteria, then simple algae and protozoans — evolved and diversified entirely in water.
Why water first? Water provides a stable environment, protection from ultraviolet radiation (before the ozone layer formed), buoyancy, and a medium for nutrient exchange. It was the only cradle for life for billions of years. The move onto land was a later, more challenging step. Plants colonised land first, followed by arthropods (like insects and spiders), and much later by vertebrates.
The key evidence for the water-to-land transition in vertebrates comes from fossils like Tiktaalik (a "fishapod" with limb-like fins and a neck) and early amphibians. These creatures had lungs, sturdy limbs to support body weight against gravity, and skin that could resist drying out. The NCERT textbook explicitly discusses this progression: fish evolved into amphibians, which then gave rise to reptiles — each step representing a greater adaptation to life on land.
The phrase "evolution of life shows a trend" does not mean every lineage moved to land. Many groups (like whales and sea turtles) returned to water secondarily. The overall trend, however, is from simpler aquatic forms to more complex terrestrial ones.
Now look at the options:
- (A) land to water — This is the reverse of the actual trend. While some animals (e.g., dolphins, ichthyosaurs) did return to water, the origin of life was in water, not land. …
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