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The Cenozoic is just as much the age of savannas, the age of co-dependent flowering plants and insects, and the age of birds. [39] Grasses also played a very important role in this era, shaping the evolution of the birds and mammals that fed on them. One group that diversified significantly in the Cenozoic as well were the snakes.
The Late Pleistocene to the beginning of the Holocene saw the extinction of the majority of the world's megafauna (typically defined as animal species having body masses over 44 kilograms (97 lb)), [1] which resulted in a collapse in faunal density and diversity across the globe. [2] The extinctions during the Late Pleistocene are ...
The Virginia opossum, Didelphis virginiana, the only marsupial in temperate North America. Armadillos, opossums and porcupines are present in North America today because of the Great American Interchange. Opossums and porcupines were among the most successful northward migrants, reaching as far as Canada and Alaska, respectively.
Megafauna. In zoology, megafauna (from Greek μέγας megas "large" and Neo-Latin fauna "animal life") are large animals. The precise definition of the term varies widely, though a common threshold is approximately 45 kilograms (99 lb), with other thresholds as low as 10 kilograms (22 lb) or as high as 1,000 kilograms (2,200 lb).
During the early Cenozoic, ... like the majority of Pleistocene megafauna, were killed off by human activity such as hunting or habitat change.
The woolly rhinoceros (Coelodonta antiquitatis) is an extinct species of rhinoceros that inhabited northern Eurasia during the Pleistocene epoch. The woolly rhinoceros was a member of the Pleistocene megafauna. The woolly rhinoceros was covered with long, thick hair that allowed it to survive in the extremely cold, harsh mammoth steppe.
Megalania (Varanus priscus) is an extinct species of giant monitor lizard, [1] part of the megafaunal assemblage that inhabited Australia during the Pleistocene. It is the largest terrestrial lizard known to have existed, but the fragmentary nature of known remains make estimates highly uncertain. Recent studies suggest that most known ...
Since the 19th century, a significant amount of research has been conducted on the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, the mass extinction that ended the dinosaur -dominated Mesozoic Era and set the stage for the Age of Mammals, or Cenozoic Era. A chronology of this research is presented here.