ANTH 1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Geologic Time Scale, Laurasia, Mesozoic
18 May 2020
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Document Summary
During this era, the supercontinent of pangea separates into two groups. The first appearance of the vertebrates (~500 mya) Transition from ocean based fish to amphibians. Near the end of the paleozoic, mammal like reptiles appear. Some of the mammalian like reptiles become/evolve into reptile like mammals. Where there was once only 1 or two mammalian traits at the individual level, becomes many. Groups of animals/species have almost all of the mammalian characteristics. Land masses still connect north america with europe (especially on the northern ends. Thus, animals were free to travel between them (early prototypical versions of primates species have been found in both areas) During the mesozoic reptiles were the dominant vertebrate. Their populations exploded due to adaptive radiation, resulting in the appearance of many differing species. At the end of the mesozoic, we see the appearance of placental mammals (live births) Cenozoic (65 mya - present) - the age of the mammals.
