BACTERIA TO HUMAN BEINGS

The final time period on the Geologic Time Scale is the

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Cenozoic Period. With large dinosaurs now extinct, smaller

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mammals that had survived were able to grow and become

dominant. The climate changed drastically over a relatively

short period of time, becoming much cooler and drier than

during the Mesozoic Era An ice age covered most temperate

parts of the Earth with glaciers, causing life to adapt relatively

rapidly and the rate of evolution to increase. All species of life

—including humans—evolved into their present-day forms over

the course of this era, which hasn't ended and most

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likely won't until another mass extinction occurs.

(250 mIilion to 65 million years ago) After the

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Permian Extinction caused so many species to go extinct, a
wide variety of new species evolved and thrived during the

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Mesozoic Era, which is also known as the "age of the dinosaurs"

since dinosaurs were the dominant species of the age. Another

mass extinction marked the end of the Mesozoic Era, whether

triggered by a giant meteor or comet impact, volcanic activity,

more gradual climate change, or various combinations of these

factors. All the dinosaurs and many other animals, especially

herbivores, died off, leaving niches to be filled by new

species in the coming era.

Paleozoic Era, major interval of geologic time that

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began 541 million years ago with the Cambrian explosion,

an extraordinary diversification of marine animals, and ended
about 252 million years ago with the end-Permian extinction,
the greatest extinction event in Earth history the Paleozoic Era,
life flourished in the seas. After the Cambrian Period came
the 45-million-year Ordovician Period, which is marked in the
fossil record by an abundance of marine invertebrates. Perhaps
the most famous of these invertebrates was the trilobite,
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an armored arthropod that scuttled around the seafloor

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for about 270 million years before going extinct.

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Precambrian Time started at the beginning of the
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Earth 4.6 billion years ago. For billions of years, there was
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no life on the planet. It wasn't until the end of Precambrian

Time that single-celled organisms came into existence.

The end of this time span saw the rise of a few more complex

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animals in the oceans, such as jellyfish. There was still no life

on land, and the atmosphere was just beginning to accumulate

the oxygen required for higher-order animals to survive. Living

organisms wouldn't proliferate and diversify until the next

era. Late Precambrian: Multicellular eukaryotes, such as

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sponges, corals, and jellyfishes, filled the oceans A