Project Coordinators will select one artwork supplied by their schools from each of the clades listed below with the exception of the hominids.
The Project Coordinators will supply their selected images to Art of Nature School with the name of the species, the students name who created it and the name of the school that the student is from.
Art of Nature School will feature the selected artworks on the inner petal that represents that clade for one year. After that year the process will be repeated with new artworks.
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Animal Clades – Oldest → Most Recent
1. 🪸 Cnidarians
~600+ million years ago
Jellyfish, corals, sea anemones
Among the earliest animals
2. 🐛 Arthropods
~540 million years ago
Insects, spiders, crustaceans
Most species-rich animal group in Australia
3. 🐟 Fish
~530–500 million years ago
First true vertebrates
Includes jawless, cartilaginous, and bony fish
4. 🐸 Amphibians
~370 million years ago
First vertebrates on land
Mostly frogs in Australia
5. 🦎 Reptiles
~310 million years ago
Snakes, lizards, turtles, crocodiles
Very diverse across Australia
6. 🐦 Birds (Aves)
~150 million years ago
Evolved from dinosaurs
Highly diverse and widespread
7. 🐨 Marsupials
~160–100 million years ago (origin of lineage; major radiation later)
Dominant native mammals in Australia
8. 🧑 Hominids (Great apes, including humans)
~15–20 million years ago
Represented in Australia by modern humans
Most recent clade on this list
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Plant Clades – Oldest → Most Recent
1.🌿 Bryophytes
Earliest land plants (~470 million years ago)
Non-vascular (mosses, liverworts)
Non-vascular plants (mosses, liverworts, hornworts)
Important for:
Soil formation
Moist habitats
Highly diverse in wetter regions
2.🌱 Ferns (Monilophytes)
Appeared ~360 million years ago
Early vascular, spore-producing plants
Spore-producing vascular plants
Common in:
Rainforests
Moist environments (eastern Australia, Tasmania)
3.🌲 Gymnosperms
~320 million years ago
First seed plants (no flowers)
Seed plants without flowers
In Australia:
Conifers (e.g., Araucaria, Callitris)
Less diverse but ecologically significant
4.🌺 Magnoliids
Early angiosperms (~140–130 million years ago)
Represent basal flowering plant lineages
An early-diverging lineage of flowering plants (basal angiosperms)
Less diverse than eudicots or monocots, but evolutionarily important
In Australia, represented by rainforest species such as:
Lauraceae (e.g., laurels)
Myristicaceae (nutmeg relatives)
Mostly found in tropical and subtropical rainforests (e.g., northeast Queensland)
5.🌾 Monocots
~130–120 million years ago
Early major branch of flowering plants
Second major angiosperm lineage
Includes:
Grasses (Poaceae)
Orchids (Orchidaceae)
Sedges (Cyperaceae)
Very important in grasslands and wetlands
6.🌸 Basal Eudicots
~125–115 million years ago
Early-diverging lineages outside rosids + asterids
Less species-rich but still significant
Includes groups like:
Ranunculales (buttercup relatives)
Proteales (includes Proteaceae, e.g., Banksia)
7.🌼 Rosids (within eudicots)
~110–100 million years ago
Large derived clade
Large evolutionary clade
Includes:
Myrtaceae (Eucalyptus)
Fabaceae (Acacia)
Casuarinas
Ecologically dominant in many Australian habitats
8.🌻 Asterids (within eudicots)
~100–90 million years ago
One of the most recently evolved major clades
Includes:
Goodenia, Eremophila
Many herbs and shrubs in arid regions
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