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What fossils were in the Tertiary period?
Fossils of the Tertiary
| Fossil Amber Centipede and > 200 insects Pliocene Andes Mountains, Colombia | Ursus speleaus (Cave Bear) Pleistocene Ural Mountains, Russia |
| Procyon lotor (Raccoon) Holocene to Pleistocene Bonner Springs, Kansas | Sparnodus sp. Fossil Fish Eocene Monte Bolca Quarry, Italy |
What were the dominant species during the Tertiary period?
The extinction of the dinosaurs and many other large species allowed the rise of mammals as the dominant land species during the Tertiary Period.
Why were there so many kinds of mammals found at the beginning of the Tertiary?
The rapid evolutionary diversification or radiation of mammals in the early Tertiary was probably mostly a response to the removal of reptilian competitors by the mass extinction event occurring at the end of the Cretaceous Period.
What plants and animals lived in the Tertiary period?
During this time mammals diversified quickly. Some examples are marsupials, insectivores, bears, hyenas, dogs, cats, seals, walruses, whales, dolphins, early mastodons, hoofed mammals, horses, rhinoceroses, hippopotamuses, oreodonts, rodents, rabbits, monkeys, lemurs, apes, and humans (Australopithecus).
What happen in Tertiary period?
The Tertiary Period began abruptly when a meteorite slammed into the earth, leading to a mass extinction that wiped out about 75 percent of all species on Earth, ending the reptile-dominant Cretaceous Period and Mesozoic Era. The Tertiary began hot and humid and ended in an ice age.
What are some major events in the Tertiary period?
This period began 65 million years ago and ended roughly 1.8 million years ago and bore witness to some major geological, biological and climatological events. This included the current configuration of the continents, the cooling of global temperatures, and the rise of mammals as the planet’s dominant vertebrates.
What plants and animals lived during the Tertiary period?
The Tertiary witnessed the dramatic evolutionary expansion of not only mammals but also flowering plants, insects, birds, corals, deep-sea organisms, marine plankton, and mollusks (especially clams and snails), among many other groups.
How old are Tertiary rocks?
about 66 million years ago
The Tertiary Period began about 66 million years ago with a mass extinction that ‘clocked’ the dinosaurs and ended when the ice ages of the Quaternary Period began, about 2.6 million years ago.