Editing 3046: Stromatolites

{{comic
| number    = 3046
| date      = February 3, 2025
| title     = Stromatolites
| image     = stromatolites_2x.png
| imagesize = 581x505px
| noexpand  = true
| titletext = If only my ancestors had been fortunate enough to marry into the branch of the bacteria family that could photosynthesize, like all my little green cousins here.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by THE MISSING LINK'S OSTRACIZED ANCESTOR - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This comic makes fun of claims to 'special' ancestry, such as some old royal family or similar, that may be made after doing research on a {{w|family tree}} site. These services allow the user to input the names and other information of family members and cross reference with various documents to trace lines of descent. Often, those who find a connection to historically significant individual are quite excited about this, and may feel that it somehow makes them special. However, in reality, once you go back more than a few generations there will be many thousands of such connections, and once you get back more than a thousand years or so, anyone you could be related to will also be related to pretty much everybody else still alive in some way or other.

While out for a walk, [[Beret Guy]] is explaining to [[Cueball]] how he has been on such a site and kept clicking back until he found an ancestor from "a few billion years back". These services typically do not allow the user to track their familial history prior to written records{{citation needed}} (although some do provide genetic sequencing which allows for more information to be acquired, but this isn't accurate enough to track on a wide scale individual people who lived before such technology existed), but with his [[:Category:Strange powers of Beret Guy|strange powers]] it is no wonder that Beret Guy could make this work! This would also explain how he is able to do all the clicks needed to go back that far in the past, as at even at a rate of 10 to 15 clicks per second, it would still take thousands of years — maybe even more due to how fast cells can reproduce — to do enough clicks.

Beret Guy found out that he is related to {{w|Stromatolites}}. They are layered sedimentary formations created by microorganisms, predominantly the oxygenic-photosynthetic {{w|Cyanobacteria|cyanobacteria}}. The organisms produce adhesive compounds that cement sand and other rocky materials to form mineral "microbial mats" (Cueball calls them ''bacterial mats''). A succession of these mats through time forms the layers ("stromata") characteristic of both fossil and modern stromatolites. Some fossil stromatolites in Australia from 3.48 billion years ago contain the oldest undisputed evidence of life on Earth, though people have also claimed {{w|Earliest known life forms|other, older evidence}} for this record. Since this is some of the first life on Earth it is basically a given that all life that came after (not even just all humans) is related. Beret Guy only claims he is related to their {{w|Alphaproteobacteria|cousins}} and that it is from their cousin bacteria that he got his {{w|mitochondria}}. His aside that he also got his cell nuclei in this way is odd, as, according to the {{w|Cell_nucleus#Evolution|leading contemporary theory}}, the ancestral archaeon ("my archaean ancestors") themselves contributed the nucleus to the original eukaryotic cell. In this model, both the archaeon and the alpha-proteobacterium were endosymbionts in a third cell, which is not consistent with Beret Guy's claim that the mitochondrion began as an archaeon's endosymbiont. Perhaps all that clicking addled even Beret Guy's brain. Anyway, he is not claiming to be a direct descendant from [the cyanobacterial component of] stromatolites, which makes sense since they can photosynthesize, and as he mentions in the title text, he cannot!

Cueball asks if he would like to contact his distant relatives, since there are still living stromatolites today (or at least something very similar to those from billions of years ago). But Beret Guy imagines they are busy so he will not bother them. When asked by Cueball what he would use his newfound knowledge for, he lies down on the hill they have climbed to bask in the sun. Because as he says ''Lying on a hill in the warm sun is an old family tradition.'' This is basically the only thing stromatolites can do, but they are doing it all the time and could thus be said to be busy with this. It seems, however, like Beret Guy is going to enjoy this tradition.

In the title text Beret guy muses about how great it would have been if his distant relatives had married into the branch of the bacteria family that could photosynthesize... And then refers to the grass he is now lying on as ''my little green cousins here''. If this had happened he would either have been able to lie on the hill without eating since [https://www.gocomics.com/doonesbury/2014/10/28 he would be able to photosynthesize] getting energy directly from the sun (instead of eating some of his small green cousins closer relatives). Or else he would actually have been a plant instead.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and Beret Guy, seen from a far in silhouette are walking up a grassy hill.]

:[They continue walking up the hill, reaching its grassy summit. Now with a standard white background. Beret Guy is a bit ahead of Cueball.]
:Beret Guy: I learned something today.
:Beret Guy: I went on one of those family tree sites and kept clicking back, and it turns out I'm related to stromatolites!

:[Closeup on Cueball. Beret Guy's reply comes off-panel from a starburst on the right edge of the panel.]
:Cueball: The bacterial mats?
:Beret Guy [off-panel]: Yeah! A few billion years back, on my mitochondria's side.

:[Cueball and Beret Guy standing on the top of the grassy hill facing each other. Berety Guy holding a hand out towards Cueball.]
:Beret Guy: My Archaean ancestors absorbed some bacteria that were cousins of stromatolites. That's how I got mitochondria.
:Beret Guy: Cell nuclei, too.

:[Cueball is standing behind Beret Guy who is now sitting down in the grass leaning back on one arm with the other arm resting on his bend knee.]
:Cueball: I think there are still living stromatolites. You could get in touch.
:Beret Guy: Nah, they're probably busy. I don't want to bother them.

:[Cueball is sitting behind Beret Guy who is now lying down, both again shown in silhouette from a far, revealing they are on the top of the grassy hill.]
:Cueball: So what ''are'' you going to do with this knowledge? Nothing?
:Beret Guy: Lying on a hill in the warm sun is an old family tradition.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Beret Guy]]
[[Category:Biology]]