========================================================================= | | |Millions Era. | Period. | Characteristic life. |of years | | |estimated -----------+--------------+------------------------------------+--------- | |"Age of man." Animals and plants | |Quaternary. |of modern types. | +--------------+------------------------------------+ Cenozoic | |"Age of mammals." Rise of highest |3 to 5. |Tertiary. |animals except man. Rise and | | |development of highest orders of | | |plants. | -----------+--------------+------------------------------------+--------- | |"Age of reptiles." Rise and | |Cretaceous. |culmination of huge land reptiles | | |(dinosaurs), of shellfish with | | |complexly partitioned coiled | +--------------+shells (ammonites), and of great | | |flying reptiles. First appearance | Mesozoic |Jurassic. |(in Jurassic) of birds and mammals; |5 to 10. | |of cycads, an order of palm-like | +--------------|plants (in Triassic); and of | | |angiospermous plants, among | |Triassic. |which are palms and hardwood | | |trees (in Cretaceous). | -----------+--------------+------------------------------------+--------- | |"Age of amphibians." Dominance of | |Permian. |club mosses (lycopods) and plants | +--------------+of horsetail and fern types. | | |Primitive flowering plants and | |Pennsylvanian.|earliest cone-bearing trees. | | |Beginnings of back-boned land | +--------------+animals (land vertebrates). Insects.| |Mississippian.|Animals with nautiluslike coiled | | |shells (ammonites) and sharks | | |abundant. | +--------------+------------------------------------+ | |"Age of fishes." Shellfish | |Devonian. |(mollusks) also abundant. Rise of | | |amphibians and land plants. | +--------------+------------------------------------| | A {|Shell-forming sea animals dominant, | | g {|especially those related to |