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Figure 1:In mammals, the quadrate and articular bones are small and part of the middle ear; the lower jaw consists only of dentary bone.. While living mammal species can be identified by the presence of milk-producing mammary glands in the females, other features are required when classifying fossils, because mammary glands and other soft-tissue features are not visible in fossils.
Early in the Cenozoic, following the K-Pg event, the planet was dominated by relatively small fauna, including small mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians. From a geological perspective, it did not take long for mammals to greatly diversify in the absence of the dinosaurs that had dominated during the Mesozoic. [38]
Multituberculate mammals (genus Rugosodon) appear in eastern China. 155 Ma First blood-sucking insects (ceratopogonids), rudist bivalves, and cheilostome bryozoans. Archaeopteryx, a possible ancestor to the birds, appears in the fossil record, along with triconodontid and symmetrodont mammals. Diversity in stegosaurian and theropod dinosaurs.
The North American land-mammal-age system was formalized in 1941 as a series of provincial land-mammal ages. [2] The system was the standard for correlations in the terrestrial Cenozoic record of North America and was the source for similar time scales dealing with other continents.
The Cretaceous (IPA: / k r ɪ ˈ t eɪ ʃ ə s / krih-TAY-shəss) [2] is a geological period that lasted from about 143.1 to 66 million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era, as well as the longest. At around 77 million years, it is the ninth and longest geological period of the entire Phanerozoic.
The Early Triassic lasted between 252 million to 247 million years ago, [23] and was a hot and arid epoch in the aftermath of the Permian Extinction. Many tetrapods during this epoch represented a disaster fauna, a group of survivor animals with low diversity and cosmopolitanism (wide geographic ranges). [24]
The Triassic (/ t r aɪ ˈ æ s ɪ k / try-ASS-ik; sometimes symbolized 🝈) [8] is a geologic period and system which spans 50.5 million years from the end of the Permian Period 251.902 million years ago (), to the beginning of the Jurassic Period 201.4 Mya. [9]
The Early Miocene (also known as Lower Miocene) is a sub-epoch of the Miocene Epoch made up of two stages: the Aquitanian and Burdigalian stages. [2] [3] The sub-epoch lasted from 23.03 ± 0.05 Ma to 15.97 ± 0.05 Ma (million years ago). It was preceded by the Oligocene epoch. As the climate started to get cooler, the landscape started to change.