CENOZOIC ERA

CENOZOIC PLANT LIFE

Cenozoic Era began 65 million years ago

with an asteroid impact that killed off a
majority of the dinasaurs and ends at the
present day. The Cenozoic is commonly
divided into three periods.
Paleogene (65.5 to 23.03 million years
ago)
Neogene (23.03 to 2.6bmillion years ago)
Quaternary (2.6 million years ago to
present)

The Paleogene was the first period of the

Cenozoic Era that contains the Paleocene,
Eocene, and Oligocene ephocs.
Invertebrates,fish and reptiles were similar to
those of modern types, but
mammals,birds,protozoa and flowering plants
would undergo considerable evolutionary
change.

Paleocene began after the extinction of the

dinasaurs.Mainly nocturnalevolved into a vast
number of different forms to fill the newly
vacant environmental niches.

At the beginning of the

Paleocene ,most mammals were tiny and
rodent-like.With time,mammals grew in
size number,and diversity.
Eocene

The first grasses appeared in the

Eocene Epoch (from about 54 to 37

million years ago) with growth near the
rootas opposed to the tip,providing a
vastly expanded and renewable food
resource for the herbovores.

Oligocene

The Oligocene Epoch extends from about 34 million to

23 million years ago.The name Oligocene comes from

the Greek oligos (meaning few) and ceno (meaning
new) and is in reference to the paucity of new
mammalian animals after their radiation duing the
preceding Eocene Epic.The start of the Oligocene is
marked by a major extinction event that might have
been caused by a meteor impact in Siberia or near the
Chesapeake Bay.

Climate and Geography

The Paleogene period witnessed a steady

cooling of the earths climate from the
hothouse conditions of the preceding
Cretaceous period.Ice began to form at
both the North and South poles and
seasonal changes were more pronounced
in the northern and southern
hemispheres,which had a significant
impact on plant and animal life.

Terrestial Life During the

Paleogene Period

Mammals didnt appear on the scene at

the start of the Paleogene period;
primitive mammals dated back as far as
the Triassic period 230 million years
ago. During the Paleocene and Eocene
epochs mammals still tended to be fairly
small,but had already started evolving
along definite lines.

Birds
During the early part of the Paleogene

period,birds,and not mammals,were the

dominant land on animals on evolutionary
trend was toward large,flightless,predatory
birds like Gastomis, which superfically
resembled meat eating dinasaurs,but
subsequent eons saw the appearance of
more diverse flying species,which were
similar in many respects to modern birds.

Marine Life During the

Paleogene Period

Not only the dinasaurs went extinct

65 million years ago;so did their
vicious marine cousins,the
mosasaurs,along with the last
remaining plesiosaurus and
pliosaurus.

Plant Life During the

Paleogene Period

Flowering plants, which had already

made an appearance toward the end
of the Cretaceous period,continued to
flourish during the Paleogene.

Neogene Period

The Neogene period contains the

Miocene and Pliocene epochs.During
this long period, while some mammal
groups evolved markedly ,others
changed little.The earliest hominids
arose on the continent of Africa.

Miocene

Epoch extends from about 23 to 5

million years ago.The name comes from a
greek words meion (less) and ceno (new)
because of the smaller proportion of modern
sea invertebrates than the subsequent
Pliocene Epoch.

Pliocene

extends from 5.3 million to 1.8

million years before present.the name comes
from the Greek words pleion (more) and ceno
(new) and roughly means the continuation of
the recent in reference to the fact that
mammals were essentially modern in form.

Pliocene

Pliocene extends from 5.3 million to 1.8

million years before present.the name
comes from the Greek words pleion
(more) and ceno (new) and roughly
means the continuation of the recent in
reference to the fact that mammals
were essentially modern in form.

Quaternary Period

The Quaternary Period that began some 2.6 million

years ago marked the origin of the close human
ancestors as well as the modern forms of the animals
we see today.The period includes two geological
epochs: the Pleistocene and Halocene,and contained a
series of glaciations.

Pleistocene
-IS the geological epoch which lasted
from about 2.6 million years ago to
about 11.700 years ago,comprising the
most period of repeated
glaciations.Bothe marine and land
faunas were essentially like today,albeit
mammals were larger than their
descendants.

Holocene
Animal and plant lie have not evolved much
during the relatively short Holocene,and are
essentially as they are today.A number of
large animals including mammoths and
mastodons, saber-toothed cats and giant
sloths disappeared in the late Pleistocene
and early Holocene,especially in North
America,where animals that survived
elsewhere ( including horses and camels)
became extinct.