What if the story of life on Earth isn't what you think it is?

From single cells through lumbering amphibians to men with spears. We all know 'the story of life on Earth'. But whose story is it?

The scientific story of life on Earth, as told in palaeontology books for children, museum displays, documentaries and even on university courses is always the same. It begins with the creation of the universe, then the Earth, represented more often than not by exploding volcanoes. Microscopic single cells bob in the ocean, dividing and swelling, morphing into things with a noticeable front end and a back end.

Skip forward a couple of billion years, and emblematic fossils, the trilobites, are scuttling around the ocean floor. Chances are that ammonites are floating around too. Then we get to the more familiar beats: the story proper finally starts. The Age of Fishes kicks off in the Devonian, 400 million years ago with fish that look a bit different to today's fish, but not different enough for us to care. Fish-headed salamanders then triumphantly flop onto a green and verdant land. Then it's the glorious Age of Reptiles, unanimously depicted by Tyrannosaurus rex locked in eternal conflict with mortal enemy Triceratops. From between the feet of stomping dinosaurs, ratty animals scurry about; cue an asteroid impact and the Age of Mammals begins. The rest you could fill in yourself, rat climbs a tree, becomes a monkey takes a few more steps and is then a man at last!